


We Are Our Own Saviors

by Gairid, Leshan



Series: Torn, Frayed and Mended [3]
Category: Vampire Chronicles - All Media Types, Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Drama, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-08-18 21:49:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 43,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8177266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gairid/pseuds/Gairid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leshan/pseuds/Leshan
Summary: Part 3 of the series Torn, Frayed & Mended - Lestat and Louis continue to mend their relationship and to explore the past. Brian takes some time to consider his life and to complete some arrangements he's had in the works.





	1. Resumption

**Author's Note:**

> Title credit: The title is a lyric from the song _Wond'ring Aloud_ by Ian Anderson.

**(Lestat)**

I settled in front of the laptop’s glowing screen wearing deliciously comfortable, sleek, black lounge pants, and nothing more. The desk in this room was situated in such a way that one could have a generous view of the street below and so I sat, eager to write once again yet pausing to absorb the pulse and traffic of the mortal hearts below. There was always a flow of people through the narrow, gaudily-lit streets, some nights more than others and tonight revelry was high. Myriad conversations came into my mind and tumbled around like a carnival ride: laughter, shrieks of surprise, come-ons and hustles, tears and confusion from too much liquor, heated whispers against damp brick walls. All of these sounds softened and rose in the air through the white stars of the confederate jasmine and bathed the whole townhouse in the lush magic of a New Orleans night. I looked back into room surveying not merely what the gentle amber lamps highlighted, but things unseen; things felt, things from the past and present that provided a far warmer light inside me now.

The task of writing beckoned. The fictitious sheet of paper with the black blinking vertical line upon it: Use me, it said. Put something here on this page that isn’t really a page at all. You know you want to, so do it. Pulse, pulse, pulse. It wasn’t really a task – nothing laborious or grueling, though I have been known to make it so for myself. The ubiquitous question out there below the windows and in places far and wide, the speculation that reflected right back onto the white square with the impatient cursor was centered around one thing: had Louis and I had resolved the most recent and perhaps one of the most sobering rifts in our relationship and come once again to live together with as much normalcy as vampires anywhere may find. Louis and Lestat – what a romantic legend we were, and that fact never slipped my mind. Louis would roll his beautiful eyes toward the ceiling and shake his head slightly at the mention of such fancy, but I always said if there were posters of the two of us locked in a torrid embrace, men and women of all ages might have them taped up to the walls of their bedrooms.

“Tape? I think we’d at least merit fancy thumbtacks,” he’d say with that admonishing glance that dissolved when he smiled. “You never stop being a rock star, do you?”

The greater truth was, I loved for people to love us – he and I together as one, for that was what I loved. Still, I avoided answering the question I could hear in the minds of mortal readers and in the streets below, some of whom came specifically to this sweltering city we called home because of an inescapable devotion to our infamous coven. There was an answer to be sure but in time haven’t I revealed so much to so many? Might I not hold close to me that which is sacred so that it might be preserved up there on a higher level with an expansive collection of popular myths and mysteries? Or perhaps I’ll save such details for an intimate evening as we read interesting passages from my journal or salaciously discuss the affairs of our kind over something in a wine glass that’s suspiciously dark even for a cabernet? You’d like that, I’m sure.

Well, there are no fairy tales here, warped or otherwise. If that’s what you’re looking for I could suggest a few recent novels, but I have no real fear that those really looking for an answer will abandon this rectangle that even now is filling up with words. And so I will relent and give you what you want. Don’t I always in the end?

Between Louis and me, things were not so much fixed as they were mended. The distinction is, fixed is fixed while mended is tenuous and requires far more care. You’d think this to be something obvious, but perhaps the most important lessons to master aren’t so easily seen. Over time, our relationship has suffered innumerable rips and tears due to carelessness, ego and assumption and it was lopsidedly my fault if there is fault to be had. During the time we were living apart, there were many long talks, deep into the night. There was questioning, raised voices and tears and conversely, there were silent erotic interludes, but understand what I’m saying. There is something more than just coming together again so predictably, more than the myth, more than the poster on the wall of legendary vampire lovers, and far more than names on a page. There is something even more important than any sincerely generated effort toward grand realizations and reunion, and that something will strive to mend us as one for all eternity.

The blood.

Regardless of whether Louis and I are continents apart by choice or in the same city with a wall of misgiving between us, the ancient magnetism of our shared blood has and does call to one another without a sound and beyond that, it and it alone seeks to heal us back into something greater as a whole... because life wins out, even for those who could well claim an exemption to the rule. The blood given to me then from me given to Louis, and with him exchanged again and again in rapturous hunger and passion must not fade from that which has carried it so infamously. This is true not simply for we two but for the others I have brought into this life and indeed for all of our kind. Ah, but I can’t expect more than wide-eyed nodding or perhaps an ‘if you say so, Lestat,’ can I? How on earth can I convey what I’m really trying to say here? Guess what? I can’t.

For now, you’ll have to put it up there on that higher level with your popular myths, but I’d like you to follow along in the meantime. Some evening a warm vision of sudden understanding may glow, much like the amber light in this very room I’m in now, the room where just beyond that archway Louis sits at the piano as he did a century ago, once more home, once more in the blood, and once more my own.

Next - Chapter 2 - An Ever Fixed Mark


	2. An Ever Fixed Mark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis is also prone to contemplation and ruminating: here he reflects upon his reunion with Lestat and one of his mistakes in the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title credit: The title is a lyric from the song _Wond'ring Aloud_ by Ian Anderson.

**(Louis)**

Since I’d been back home, back again with Lestat, we’d settled into a routine that resembled the many times we’d come together from absences long and short. I say resembled because it did indeed look very much like the way we have always cohabitated. There was passion and sensuality in abundance; in spite of the many things that have come between us, there is and always has been a deep and insistent thrum of passion.

Some of that is the blood. Lestat is my maker, my ever fixed mark. To a vampire, the word maker encompasses many facets that had not been part and parcel of our mortal lives and the words we use to describe these facets have different meanings to us. Lestat is many things to me; I am of his blood and in that way, he is my father, the parent who brought me to this life, yet he is so much more to me than that. I love him beyond all reason: my soul is bonded with his and my needful flesh craves him in all ways. When we share the blood between us, the spiraling ecstasy borders on pain for there is the realization that such ecstasy is brief and we must separate, flesh from flesh, and more excruciatingly, mind from mind. That we are able to share it when we wish in no way makes the instant of separation less difficult. Being parted from Lestat has ever been a hardship for me; I am unable to articulate properly just how painful it is to be denied his presence, the nearness of his beating heart, the pull of the blood that we share. I don’t know if this is true for the others of our kind, though I expect it is in varying degrees.

In these last few years since we’d been apart, when the wretched pain of my craving for him seemed too much to bear, I had a lot of time to contemplate how it had been for him, my beloved one, to have had this sort of closeness wrenched from him before he’d had any time at all to understand it. It explained so many things and it grieved me that I had not the wit to realize or understand it for so long; that I had wasted so much time with my stubborn and contrary selfishness. He had a hand in my pain and my anger, but there is no doubt that I was an accomplice in constructing and shoring up the walls that stood so solidly between us over the years.

Our current reunion had many things in common with previous times, but there were differences as well; subtle ones for the most part, but noticeable to me. We spent more time apart for one thing. Usually, it was only a matter of a few hours most nights. Perhaps we’d gotten used to time alone and the contemplation it affords. We did not walk on the proverbial eggshells with each other, but there was a certain carefulness, likely my doing more than his. That reticence rested on the fact that although we had spoken liberally and often about many things, there was a lot that still remained unspoken. I was not insensible to it, quite the opposite, but it seemed a measure of the distance we had travelled that we gave ourselves the time to approach the more delicate matters between us with a measure of calm thoughtfulness rather than in the heat of anger as we had so often done in the past.

I’d hunted early in the evening and now, waiting for his return, my need was set low at languid anticipation. We’d had an athletic night of it yesterday and sitting in the darkened parlour with the street lights filtering in through the plants on the balcony I felt the buzz of my recent feed joining with his blood and accelerating the healing of the small injuries that inevitably occur during our more exuberant couplings.

Settling back with my senses narrowed, the cacophony of the street and the surrounding humanity was dimmed, woven in with the Chopin nocturne playing dreamily through the sound system. Beneath my bare feet lay a recent addition, a lovely hand-knotted silk Bokhara rug in shades of grey, cream, and sepia and on the mantlepiece several beeswax pillars flickered golden, scenting the room with delicate sweetness. It was so good to be here again.

I cannot hear his thoughts, but I can surely recognize his step when he approaches; the beat of his heart is thunderous and compelling compared to the mortals around us. In the aftermath of a night such as we shared there is often a faint prickling when he draws near. Not yet, I thought, as I drifted into a light doze. In this state of lucid dreaming, I saw him again, poised over me, eyes stormy and expressive with his efforts at physical control over his obvious need. The way his limbs trembled as he gathered himself, the fluttering muscles in his arms, thighs and belly and always, the pulse in his throat causing me to yearn toward fulfillment both physical and spiritual.

I murmured his name into the silence of the room and then opened my eyes and parted my lips to breathe in the various scents. Our mingled blood, still raftered in the warm air of the house, was almost visible as a red haze in this stillness. Mortals outside in the street, mules and car exhaust and, achingly, very faint, a fugitive scent of Brian, woven into the fabric of the upholstery or perhaps it was just in my mind.

Was he well? Did he miss us, this life, this place? Was he suffering from need of the Blood? I wanted to speak with him again yet I also wanted to respect his need to think clearly. I knew him, though, and I knew his love was the very thing that would prevent him asking for aid, even something so simple as a phone call. His letters were regular and liberally spiced with the details of his daily life. Easy to think he was managing well, but I decided not to let much more time pass before I spoke to him.

Next: Chapter Three - Reenearagh


	3. Reenearagh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brian meditates on his circumstances and how some outcomes may be inevitable; plans are coming to fruition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters 3, 4 & 5 are all from Brian's POV - posting them together because they are all related; the chapters are short but needed some separation.

**(Brian)**

I came here because it’s solitary place, a windswept and lonely cape in a sparsely populated area of County Kerry. Reenearagh it’s called in Irish and that sounds entirely more romantic than the English name of the cape, which is Hog’s Head. I have a basic knowledge of the language, but I am no scholar. The dialect here is understandable to me, however; my father was born near Ventry, not all that far from here.

My father spoke Irish-- _Gaeilge_ \-- with me and my brothers when we were very little and some of it stuck. As we grew and his dependence on the drink increased, he still managed to come out with it, to keep at least me and Mick...Michael...in practice. My sister Siobhan was just a baby then and by the time she was old enough, my father had surrendered to the bottle for the most part. My parents were not cruel to us, but the South Boston project we lived in gnawed away at their softer sides and left shells that could only dimly recall what it meant to be nurturing. By the time Liam died, they may as well have died right along with him.Until I came here, I had no idea of what my father’s life had been like - he has always been a close, quiet man. The only things I remember him sharing with us kids with any sort of joy was the language and the music that he gave me.

Liam was the oldest and he had little interest in the learning Irish despite the gung-ho, oddly skewed version of Irishness that was and is pervasive in Boston. He was caught up with his life in Southie and the brothers who ran things in the projects back then. He died just shy of his eighteenth birthday -- a heroin overdose, they said, but I knew different. He skimmed a little, Liam did, to try and help my mom and dad out, and then later to help himself out and there was no forgiveness in the hearts of those people he worked for; they didn’t get rich giving second chances to the kids they had running dope for them.

It was a long time ago, but there are those things that never leave you. I was just a little kid when it happened but I can still see him, strange in death, his blue eyes closed forever. I’d stood beside the kneeler with my hand on his, thinking that it was a joke or a mistake because that wasn’t how Liam felt and that wasn’t how Liam looked and the last thing I remembered was the feeling of squeezing around my heart in the minutes before I fainted dead away on the floor next to the casket. Liam has been in his grave for over twenty years now, but I can still see him very clearly, his narrow, handsome face and his milk-pale skin. He had a quick smile and a sharp wit and he should not have died at only seventeen.

When I left New Orleans after all that had happened since Lestat’s return, I had first thought of going to the Caribbean where the nights that rest silky-warm on the skin and the sameness of the days lull you into something that feels like dreaming. But then, that was a little too similar to how my life had become in the three years that Louis had allowed himself to take a measure of what comfort I could give him. In return' he’d taken me to heights I had not known existed for mortals. Leaving him had devastated me much more than I had believed it would, because being around him…around any of them, is like a drug: it skews how you think. I lied to myself, telling myself firmly that I needed time to sort things out, but I knew what I wanted--I hardly dared to think that Louis was weighing things as carefully as I was supposed to be doing. I stayed away for Louis’s sake and Lestat’s. Whatever my feelings are, I am well aware of my place in the scheme of things. My acceptance as a part of their reality is much more than I’d ever dared hope for and it’s my theory that it has something to do with my dim understanding of what they are to each other.

The first weeks here were difficult. Actually, hellish might be more the word I am looking for. I spent a long time feeling like I had lost the ability to breathe in sufficient air. I’d known it wouldn’t be an easy thing and God knows there’s no book out there that tells you how to cope with the loss of the vampire in your life, the one you have come to love above everyone and everything. Louis’s absence coupled with the complete change of scenery had thrown me for a loop, one that I guess I should have foreseen more clearly than I actually had. On the other hand, the mind-link, while quiet, was not sundered by distance or by time and I was comforted in feeling a warmth at the base of my skull, the spot where I perceive the source to be. That quiet warmth signaled Louis’s contentment; it meant that things were as they should be and that was the whole point of my leaving in the first place in spite of my blathering about needing to think my way through things. The warmth told me he was there if I should need him.

Much of the time for the first few weeks I thought about nothing more complicated beyond learning my way around. I arrived in early December and ensconced myself in a small but comfortable house sheltered in a fold between two rocky slopes that overlooked the Atlantic. It was an isolated spot, but isolation was what I wanted. I’d brought my dog and in those first early winter weeks, Murphy was as out of his element as I was; the pervasive damp and the strong winds off the sea were cold to a dog born in the sultry heat of Louisiana. He spent a good deal of time beside the hearth in the sheep’s wool lined bed I’d got for him when we arrived. I did too, seated in a comfortable chair while I watched the red glow of the fire and tried not to think too much. Storms blew in from the sea, but the house was solid and snug and the two hills kept the brunt of these fierce blasts at bay. I would sit in the drowsy heat, listening to the wind and the rain lashing the windows and letting my mind wander.

On days when it was fine, we walked the area, following hare trails with the frosted grass crackling beneath our feet and our breath pluming above our heads. With the onset of spring and weather a good deal less stormy than it was at the tail end of winter, we ventured out daily, learning the lay of the land and seeing it in many moods, sunny, rainy or wreathed in mist. My dreams here are vivid, clear memories often overlaid with a feeling of prescience, as odd as that sounds; I am not really certain what I mean by that--I never recall foreseeing the future, it’s only a feeling that I will at some point. The dreams are not what I would have thought, they are not erotic, but sensual, not dreams of blood, though blood appears in some of them.

In dreams I see Louis clearly, hear his quiet, deep voice, the particular timbre of it that always resonates in beneath my solar plexus and ribs. Sometimes he’s there, sitting beside me on the porch of the cabin where we spent a winter. He watches a pale orange crescent moon set and gazes at Jupiter, the brightest body in the sky. Sometimes I’m sitting on the gallery of the beautiful old house on Grand Lake, sipping from a tumbler packed with ice and cherries and cold gin. Below me, the fireflies flicker yellow-green just above the wide lawn that sweeps down to the lakeshore and above, a Maxfield Parrish sky of towering cumulus clouds in shades of pink and lavender and ethereal, pellucid aquamarine graces the northwest sky. The color fades, the sky darkens and I feel him standing just behind me, my skin prickling with the anticipation of looking into his eyes.

Sometimes Louis finds me in these dreams, his mind-voice as clear and intimate as I’d ever heard it at home. His manner is calm yet there is a suppressed energy about these visits, something he wants to tell me. I find myself resistant and instead I watch the falcons dive from the face of the cliff, watch the hares at the top of the hill thumping and disappearing into their warren. Louis hasn’t offered it, he has only asked me if it’s something I really want. If he is certain he wants to give this gift to me, I already know my answer.

When I wake, the light is different and when I step outside the door the air is laced with mists and the pervasive scent of salt and damp earth. I am a ghost here but not an entirely unhappy one. The days are beautiful to me no matter the weather, the wild Atlantic speaks to me in many voices. Just as in my dreams, the falcons swoop and dance in the currents; they share the cliff face above the ocean with flocks of puffins and the emerging tufts of sea thrift. Below, on the rocky shoreline seals bask in the watery sunlight.

I would have liked to see him in this place, Louis in a woolen sweater with the wind catching his dark hair, but I know he is where and with whom he belongs. It comforts me, settles my heart and dampens to a manageable level the ache that I know will never leave me. I spend evenings in pubs in Waterville or Portmagee, playing music with local musicians who at first regarded me with some reserve, but welcomed a fiddle with an earnest player. When a bit of time had passed, they become friendlier and after a while, I felt comfortable with them and more at home in general. They gave me songs I didn’t know and I gave them a few in return.

Louis wrote letters, arriving every ten days or so and I wrote letters back, avoiding the urge toward the ubiquitous reach of the computer. I had every modern means of communication, but it was more natural to put pen to paper, to think about what I wanted to say to him. It felt off to me at first, but I had come to like it - it was a tangible thing to hold his letters in my hands and to trace the elegant calligraphy he used, to smell the ink and the paper and the imagined scent of jasmine and roses from the courtyard.

**** **** ****

I had not yet posted my most recent letter. It was shorter than normal but this one contained a gift for him and for Lestat, something I had worked for several months to complete. I had in fact begun the negotiations before I’d left New Orleans and I had only just returned from Dublin where I’d picked up the fruits of my efforts. Living between two worlds is challenging and I’d be lying if I said what I’d done had been without risk, likely a good deal more than I imagined, but hey, you never gain anything without taking a few risks, right? Patience and a pretty good idea of what could be called a dark network, in that it’s not exactly common knowledge, worked in my favor.

It helped a lot that I was walking around with a noticeable amount of vampiric blood and recognizably powerful blood at that. Noticeable, that is, to other vampires. I’d counted on that and the only thing that had me slightly hesitant about sending the gift when it had finally come to this point was that I knew it wasn’t something Louis would have approved of. Not the gift, by the way, but the manner in which it was secured. On the other hand, I was certain that Lestat would likely be enthusiastic about it and I knew that would be a pretty good distraction. I had no wish to anger or upset Louis...quite the opposite. I’d judged the risks to be on the low side of lethal and, lucky me, I guessed right.

Next: Chapter Four - Getting Down to Business


	4. Getting Down To Business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Brian seals a deal.

**(Brian)**

It had been disconcerting to realize that my next contact was a vampire with a nearly impenetrable Dublin accent. She’d called me the night before to say she’d meet me in Portmagee; I didn’t bother to ask how she knew I was there more often than not on Thursdays. She gave her name as Fiona, and she was instantly recognizable when she stepped through the doors, a delicately beautiful creature, quite enamored of her power which for some reason I took to be fairly newfound. She didn’t take pains to go unnoticed, either, dressed more for a night of clubbing in Dublin than a small pub crammed to the rafters with mostly locals and a few tourists.

I saw her just as the little group of musicians I’d joined that evening finished up a set of dizzyingly fast reels which I had been pleased to be able to keep up with for the most part. The last tune ended with a resounding downbeat in admirable unison which is the sort of thing that causes people to call out with appreciation and applause. Everyone playing reached for their glasses to toast the feeling that comes with a good set played with that mysterious thing that often settles over people joining to play music together.I followed suit, though my pint was nearly empty and turned to Eamon, retuning his guitar with his head bowed close to it. 

“Let me up, Eamon,” I lifted my empty glass. He obliged, scraping his chair back. Noting my glance, he turned to look and saw Fiona.

“Like a bee to a flower,” he said with a pleased chuckle. You never saw a place where everyone was so concerned with whether or not you are romantically attached to someone. I sidled out from behind Eamon’s chair.

She watched me as I approached to stand beside her, nodding to Mike the barkeep and signaling that I needed another pint. Her small hand encircled a short glass of whiskey, untouched, and she gave a nod to indicate that I should join her.

“You may as well take this while you wait for that pint,” Fiona said, pushing the glass toward me. “No sense wasting good whiskey.”

I have not yet met a vampire (and I’ve seen a few) that was not striking. Fiona was no exception; being a small woman, she presented a deceptively fragile appearance. She had a cloud of black hair, a high, smooth forehead, wide-set blue eyes and a pert nose. Such a woman, especially one as confident and provocatively dressed as she was, easily drew the eyes of the patrons. Most of those eyes skated over her with some sense that it was probably best to stand back and not necessarily because of the Mrs. waiting at home or the hawk-eyed girlfriend. Just a sense---I’ve seen that happen a lot. There were a few more interested gazes, but she fielded those very cleanly, much in the way that I had so often noted with Louis.

I should have been more nervous, I guess, but I didn’t feel much in the way of menace flowing from her: her color was pretty high, so I figured she’d fed before her arrival. Besides, she was here on business. The process of getting this far in, jumping through quite a lot of hoops just to arrange a vacation had inured me somewhat. Most of the contacts had thus far been human after the first one, a vampire who I knew only as Wrack. He had an arrangement with Lestat who allowed him to reside New Orleans; he ran a kink club that catered to vampires and I spoke with him pretty often to clear his clientele with Lestat.

“Drink up if you like. I have time,” Fiona said, clearly nettled at my wandering thoughts.

“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “So...what’s next?”

“A short trip; I’m taking you to meet Himself to settle up.”

I wanted to ask questions but I already knew how that would go. Whoever Himself was, I’d only find out when introduced. “When?”

“Coupla nights from now. Can you get yourself to Dublin?”

“I can. You could have told me that on the phone and saved a trip.”

“You’ll need this,” she said, ignoring what I’d said and handing me an envelope. “And if you want to know, I came here to look you over. You’re not what I expected.”

"I could say the same.” I said. That got a smile out of her and she stayed a little while longer. It turned out she was somewhat starstruck with the idea of speaking to someone associated with the famous Vampire Louis and the not-only-famous-but-notorious Vampire Lestat; at least that was the vibe I got from her questions. I wondered if Lestat would preen just the tiniest bit when I told him about this at some point.

I answered some of her questions, circumvented the rest and she seemed not to mind, really. Maybe it was what she expected.

Next: Chapter Five - Transaction Complete


	5. Transaction Complete

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pretty much what the title of the chapter suggests,

**(Brian)**

I made arrangements with Muirín, the daughter of the neighbors a couple miles away to come and see to Murphy’s needs including spending a little time with him if she could spare it. She and her parents had come by a few weeks after I moved in and she herself had stopped by a few times when she was out riding her sturdy Connemara pony, so I was comfortable enough with it after running it by her father before I asked her.

It was about a four hour drive across to Dublin, and I left in the morning so I’d get there early enough to check out the inevitable pub-as-meeting place; the envelope Fiona had given me contained clear directions and instructions on where to wait for her. I drove to the meeting place and found that it was more of a restaurant than a pub, so I decided to just have a meal there and wait for Fiona.

She showed up an hour or so after sunset and this evening was dressed for the damp, misty night. It reminded me forcibly of Louis. He’s strong, so strong, and the cold or the heat can’t harm him, but he hates to feel cold, reveling in warm clothing--cashmere wool socks, plush sweaters, elegantly fitted woolen jackets. I blinked and noticed Fiona staring at me with a faint smile on her face.

“We’ll take your vehicle,” she said, holding out her hand for the keys.

Her function had been to escort me on the Dublin-to-Holyhead ferry on the last trip of the night and from there to drive to a town in Wales called Betws-y-Coed. She wasn’t much for small talk, so I allowed myself to doze in the confines of the Land Rover, occasionally looking out through the windshield to see her standing near the front of the ferry boat, her hands stuffed into the pockets of her jacket and the wind tearing at her hair. I wondered how long she’d been turned, wondered who her maker was. I wondered because I wanted what she had.

Upon reaching our destination, I was shown to a comfortable room in a beautiful two-story stone and timber house that overlooked a rushing river. I woke late morning and according to Fiona's instructions, went to the dining room, there to be served a meal by a polite but mostly uncommunicative woman of indeterminate age. After the meal I walked around the village which was, to my surprise, a touristy sort of place--I heard several languages and saw many people with maps. My home is a tourist mecca and the activity made this place seem comfortingly familiar.

That evening, Fiona brought me to a room at the back of the house. I had the impression of heavy wood, leather armchairs, and a damp but not unpleasant smell. I say impression because the details were swept aside by the sight of a well-muscled giant with a bald head, large ears and a scruff of red beard. Himself, I assumed. He looked like he should be wearing a kilt and carrying a spear, but when he spoke his accent was Welsh.

“Mr. Callahan,” he said, expansively. He offered his hand along with a wide and engaging smile. I took it and felt my own hand, which is not particularly small, enfolded entirely. Himself seemed highly amused, going by his wide and fangy grin. “Fiona!” he boomed at a level that was just short of painful, “Please see what’s holding up the solicitors. It’s rude is what it is, taking up Mr. Callahan’s time.”

Fiona tipped me an inexplicable wink and left the room. The giant nodded toward a handsome leather armchair. “My manners are poor. Please--have a seat. I am Gareth Barnard and I have been looking forward to making your acquaintance. Will I call you Brian?” Before I could make any sort of answer, he was off again. “Fucking lawyers, am I right? By god, they drove me mental when I was human...you know, Brian, some things never change.”

“So I’ve heard,” I said fervently. Louis’s lawyer’s family had handled his business since he himself was mortal. The current generation was not much to his liking, but as he’d confided, it was simpler than having to go through the charade of feigning mortality. _“It’s said humans cannot deal with the fact of our existence and I would agree that’s true in many cases," Louis had said, "but we know that’s not entirely true, yes? Glaise Gibeault knows just as his father had and that goes well back. I wondered for a long time if this might be something to do with the reputation of this particular city.”_

Gareth offered me a glass of the pure and I accepted gratefully. “Fine whiskey. It’s the one thing I miss,” he confided as he watched me put away half the short glass. He stepped behind me and I could see his reflection in the window pane across the room; he leaned forward and took my measure, sniffing near the nape of my neck. I remained still---it was not something that discomfited me much; I was well used to it. He stepped back, nodding slightly as he rounded the beautiful heavy oak desk. He placed his enormous hands on the blotter and leaned forward. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

I weighed my words for a moment. Vampires and their tests. “Should I be?” This made him laugh and I became suddenly aware that he was, in his rough way, magnetically attractive. The heavy double doors opened again and Fiona nodded a pair of nervous-looking solicitors onto the room.

Gareth turned his attention to them, forgoing the offer of a drink. He introduced us and then had them get on with the paperwork. He seemed irritated at this business; for me, having taken care of quite a bit of this sort of thing, it was something I was accustomed to. I should say here that sending a pair of vampires on the sort of specific holiday that had taken me months to arrange was not an inexpensive proposition. Instead of liquidating stock assets, and I had quite a lot of those by now, I’d decided on transferring a house and property I owned in St. Bartholomew in the Caribbean. I’d bought it years back and spent time there on occasion. At this point, though, I felt like I could let it go. It had been recently renovated and the location was both beautiful and desirable; when offered, it had been accepted immediately. The solicitors were here to finalize the transfer. It didn’t take long, much to their relief - a dozen or so signatures and the deal was done. I felt that the second strong handshake with Gareth was more binding than the reams of paperwork I’d signed.

The lawyers left and I was alone again with Fiona and Gareth. She was curled onto a low settle before the stone fireplace. Outside, it had begun to rain. “Can I ask you a question?” Gareth said.

“Can I ask you a question?” I countered. He regarded me for a moment and then shrugged.

“Why not?”

“How long have you been a vampire?” He blinked as though he’d not expected something so personal. I’d begun to think those sessions with David on shielding my mind had borne more fruit than I’d believed. Maybe it was because I never felt a need to shield anything from Louis. Why would I?

“Not long. My maker is very old and he made me strong, but in years? Not old. I was turned in 1995.”

Not ‘born to darkness’, I noticed with some amusement. “You’re the rugger that went missing.”

He smiled again, seeming genuinely pleased, “That’s me, yeah. Rugby fan?”

“Not so much. Sorry. My father is, though. I recognized your name. Changed the spelling, yeah? I know that dodge. Your tattoos are still visible.”

He nodded and went on with his query “Your vampire blood. That’s the Vampire Louis?”

“I’m guessing you know that, but yeah. It’s his blood,” I said consideringly. “It’s my blood, too.”

“It’s not so long ago for me and I remember what it felt like. You seem to be handling it pretty well. How long since he’s been giving you the Blood?”

I stared at him for a long moment. “Not meaning any disrespect but I think that’s between Louis and me.”

He nodded. “Forgive me. You’re right of course. It’s just that you smell...different. Not that I have a lot of experience. I’ve only known one other who was still human when first we met.”

“I’m here in the room, Gareth.” Fiona said from her place near the fire. “He means he’s curious as to how you’re walking the line between our world and yours so closely.”

I thought I knew what she meant but pushed that back, concentrating on the street grid of the Lower Garden District back at home. Gareth put up both large hands. “You don’t want to talk about it. Right. Maybe another time, when things have changed.”

“I’m not there yet.”

He smiled. “Not yet. But where else will you go,? You’re not frightened. You trust him and you understand enough to know his blood protects you. His blood is Lestat’s blood so you’re safe enough--after all, who would defy Lestat, strong as he is? Will you be a brother in the blood, sexy, sweet man?”

He gave me a hot little sideways look and then it was my turn to laugh a little. “Are you flirting with me, Gigantic Gareth? ”

Gareth laughed then, a genuinely amused laugh. “Maybe. I like you.”

“Yeah? I only play hurly, big guy. Tell me, does that beard grow back like that if you shave?”

“Oh my god,” Fiona said from her place on the settle. She sat up and looked over at me with a fox-like smile. “Aren’t yeh deadly? Listen, when you’re brought to us, you come see me in Dublin, yeah? We’ll go on a piss up, you ‘n me.”

The next day, I got in the Rover and drove back to Holyhead and all I could hear was Fiona saying _‘When you’re brought to us_ ”. Jesus Christ. I wanted that, but more than anything I wanted to see Louis’s face again.

Next: Chapter Six - Lelio Musings and An Unexpected Gift


	6. Lelio Musings and an Unexpected Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summarized pretty much in the chapter title.

****

(Louis)

My thoughts, never far from him at any time, drifted to Lestat. Gone out for a few drinks, he’d said with wry good humor on his way out. He looked for all the world like a hipster kid with his do it yourself haircut, skinny jeans and a Circle Jerks shirt so worn it was nearly transparent. He’d leaned over at the bottom of the stairs, frowning at the unlaced Chucks he favored with the night’s look and the tatty shirt rose up, showing me a band of tawny flesh. I wanted to eat him up. I smiled to myself because when I’d said so, he promised a feast upon his return. He gave me a deep kiss at the door and sauntered across the street, turning as a car went by, bare inches from him. 

_“Louis?” he called. I cocked my head questioningly._

_“How’s my deliberate nonchalance?”_

_“Deliberate,” I called back. “You shouldn’t have cut your hair. The man bun is a better look with that shirt.”_

_“Oh, like you’d know.” His grin was meltingly insouciant._

_“And you have no beard,” I scoffed as he started down the street. He flipped me the bird and stuffed his hands into the pockets of jeans so tight they should have burst apart at the intrusion. I closed the door as he rounded the corner. My Lelio, I thought._

And just where was he now? Basketball playoffs are dominant right now - perhaps he’d chosen a sports bar to snack on Southern cuisine--maybe an Alabama fan who’s shouted ‘Roll Tide!’ one too many times. More likely, considering his chosen attire, off to a Bywater bar to engage in ironic one-upmanship.

He’d handed me the oversized envelope from Brian before he’d dressed, having retrieved a stack of mail from the foyer downstairs. “You know, this stuff really piles up. I miss Brian for many reasons, but I’d forgotten the avalanche of mail that descends upon us. He’d even seen to it when... well, you know.” He’d kicked at the litter of junk mail he’d tossed on the floor. I picked up the small flood of envelopes and deposited it on the desk and wandered back down the hall to the parlor, turning the envelope over in my hands and smiling a little at Brian’s untidy scrawl; he always starts out neatly enough in a Palmer method cursive that degenerated quickly into a haphazard mix of printing and script. He’d taken special care with this letter; the normal penmanship degeneration was much less noticeable.

_My dearest Messieurs –_

_First things first – Thank you, Louis, for your most recent letter. It brought on the usual wave of homesickness but missing out on unseasonable heat in the early spring is not part of that. I think Murphy would disagree if he had the words to do so; as it is he makes his thoughts clear enough by sitting close by the fire on these still-chilly mornings. I will address the enjoyable details in a separate letter as this one has a specific purpose._

_Now, gentlemen - in the envelope you will find a tentative itinerary and literature that is somewhat sparse on specific details, though you will get a good general indication of what is ahead - a little something I have been working on since before I left New Orleans in anticipation of you finding your way back to each other. When you have decided when you wish to make the journey, I will clear your calendars and see to anything where a presence might be necessary. At this time there is nothing pressing, likely because of the upcoming festivals._

_The flight, being private, can be scheduled on your decision. The flight is a long one, so a layover would be a good idea. Paris perhaps, or the Côte d'Azur? Wherever you prefer is fine. From that point, all that would need to be done is a call to affirm when you would be arriving at the destination. I have every reason to believe the accommodations will be to your liking; I don’t want to say anything further because there should be at least some element of surprise. Anticipation and all that, right? And, as always, I would love to take up the position of Official Photographer, however, this time is for you._

_Missing you both more than you can possibly imagine and with much love, Brian_

I missed him -- the vital, briny scent of his blood; his amused smile and ready wit. I folded the letter carefully and laid it to one side, heart filled with gratitude for his generous and loving spirit. Upon seeing the word ‘itinerary’, I first assumed he had arranged a nicely thought out trip for Lestat and myself, but what was revealed in the content letter and spare, elegant brochure was not at all a simple holiday. The details were few, but it was eminently clear that this was a space run by immortals for immortals. How on earth had Brian managed it? How had he found such a place? I know Brian to be resourceful--he is extremely adept at anticipating outcomes and very good at blending in on many levels but this time it seemed he had managed something extraordinary.

There’d been no little risk involved, I realized with some consternation. The introductory letter of welcome was signed with a name unfamiliar to me. I wondered if Lestat knew who it was or if he’d heard of this place.

Next: Suffusion


	7. Suffusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lestat contemplates the changes that have come to pass and a conversation with Brian.

****

(Lestat)

There was that deep, abiding contentment to his homecoming - and it was difficult to describe the way it made me feel to have him home with me. It didn’t seem that long ago that we’d stood in the mansion over on Esplanade and I’d sputtered some sort of admission about the beauty of our relationship and how …ah, well… that was all water under the bridge now but the difference is, we were standing on the bridge arm in arm. A bridge we had repaired and strengthened together.

We were as happy as all reunited lovers can be; we walked the streets, sharing laughter over things from our past and tender whispers about our present and future. When we returned home, there was the physical expression of our reunion and it moved each of us to a higher place with an intensity and emotion that mere words could never explain.  
Though I was nearly as exhausted as my beloved this night, I got up from our bed and after offering a gentle caress to his sleepy face, walked down the hall to find some recovery in the bath. It wasn’t always the case that our lovemaking left us looking like victims of a bloody battle, but tonight, he’d rendered me deliciously damaged.

The deep, semicircular incision from navel to hip bone met the warmth of the water and caused me to draw in a hissing breath. I paused to savor the pain and revisit the image of him poised there, one hand on me below, the other deftly carving that line with delicious deliberation. Watching me as I watched him... fully negating any idea that I was in control. My beautiful Louis had so lovingly danced his tongue along the line as the blood welled forth for his communion.

I closed my eyes and leaned back against the contrasting coolness of the porcelain and let my mind wander, drowsy and dim. When he had nothing left to give or take, he’d lovingly directed me toward this watery dénouement. It pulled at my heart to witness him spent from the drink for it was anything but mere sensual play: It was homecoming. That singular word could not encapsulate all it was to engage in such a way, nor could it explain that it had occurred more frequently since the night he’d come to the townhouse and subtly proclaimed his decisive return. I might have wanted to run an advertisement in the newspaper, but Louis… all he wanted was me.

In all our time together our lovemaking has run the gamut from quick and teasing to marathons of endurance but since the night of his return there had been a new, elusive ingredient and as he so expertly worked my body tonight, I caught it with a bit more definition. It wasn’t simply the demand of an instinctive need, it was a new demand overall. Yes, I said to myself as I shifted in the water and reached blindly for the sponge that hung from the antique faucet. While it could be said that Louis had every right to demand anything of me for a change and that I damn well owed him whatever he asked, that wasn’t the context here. He was demanding… how to say… he was demanding… us. He was solidifying that we were us once more and beyond that, affirming that a better version had been forged of the suffering we’d put upon one another over the last half-decade.  
I squeezed the sponge and released it absently above my chest, there was the thought that I would gladly deplete myself for both his pleasure and affirmations, but I was groggy and near asleep as my body recovered. I pictured Louis lying upon our bed in a tangle of sheets. How were they so spotless, I wondered with a drifting mind and then the thought...had Brian already washed them? No, he couldn’t have done that yet. He was probably in there talking to Louis and yearningly scenting the sex and blood coming off his body. But no, Louis wasn’t in any state to hold a conversation. He was dreaming of my dreaming.

“Brian,” I said without any motion of my lips or body. Had it been audible to anyone but me? But then he was there beside the bath. Did he know how he looked? The dim lighting cast a glow upon his face as that of a painted disciple knelt in devotion. He came closer and took the sponge from the water to gently swab it upon the lacerations that ran neck to shoulder and then lower to the one lying just above my heart. I could see that the uppermost corner where Louis had savagely sunk his teeth had not yet knit together and it was there I mentally guided Brian’s hand. He traced the point of entry with reverent wonder and when I nodded, he dipped his fingers into the bruised flesh and then traced them against his lips, slowly licking each one. There was no way for him to disguise the current of pleasure that arose as the mystery of my blood sparked within him and when he opened his eyes they shone with unbridled lust. Would he ask for more? Ah but I might invite him right into the tub and give him more. Yes, I just might.

“Brian?”This time my voice had definitely been real and it brushed away the haze. I looked toward the door and waited for a few moments to discern the sounds of the house but Brian was not among them. Of course, he hadn’t been there at all; Brian was far away in Ireland, perhaps sipping whiskey to a lesser detriment than what he’d taken in my drowsy reverie.  
I sat up and splashed my face. How long ago had it been that it had happened just like that – him there beside me so tenderly after Louis had drawn his fill? I thought as I stood and grabbed a towel that it had probably been before I even left for Italy perhaps, though I could not remember. I let the water drain and gave an evaluative look at my back to note the nearly invisible lines where my hungry one had found purchase as I moved above him. Again came remembrance of the night in this very room when Brian had traced his hand along similarly fading welts as he said something about Shelley or no… I paused to recall… yes, Keats had been the poet with some line about complications or the like. But of course he was a mortal that quotes poetry as he ponders the fascination of _La vie immortelle_. 

****** **** ******

With that thought, I secured the towel around my waist and walked down the hall to peek in on Louis;despite what he’d argue to the contrary he was snoring lightly. I closed the door and went on down the stairs to the darkness of the front parlor. My phone was on the lovely, long apothecary’s cabinet that served as a catch-all just inside the front door and I took it in hand but instead of dialing immediately as I’d intended, I paused, my finger just above the numbered keypad. Was it right to call Brian simply because he’d come to mind this night or was it just another impulsive intrusion? I closed my eyes and felt for his mind, but no, that was cheating – either call him or forget it.

By quick calculation, I figured it was somewhere around ten in the morning there, so it wasn’t as if I’d be waking him in the middle of the night. What would he be doing with himself without the likes of Louis and me to look after? Was he out on a sunny day picking up fresh milk and eggs from a local farmer? I liked that image. The pictures we had of Brian in the sunlight were my favorites, sun and shadow highlighting the faint lines around his eyes and mouth. That smile was never forced or untrue and if you were the direct recipient, it warmed your spirit for the rest of the night. That made me think of Louis and again how much he must long not only for that smile, but for everything else that was Brian.

I tapped at the phone and brought it to life. “Hello, Lestat,” said the presumably female phone-robot – believe that we had enjoyed toying with that little feature more than once. Louis had gone so far once to make it greet me as His Royal Highness. Ah, but the question was, did he plan the aftermath as it had played out, or had he simply thought himself witty? It was a night of performance to be sure, where haughtiness was in full order. I’d played it up completely: Bring me my paper, fetch me my shoes, and so on, and each time, he’d compiled as though I were just in a mood for some reason. At the end of the evening, however, ah there he was asking, ‘My Prince, did I serve you well this evening?’ and me, stroking his hair with the honest reply that he served me in every way possible. I had meant that he’d complied with every silly request that night, but clever Louis had pointed out that no, he hadn’t yet served me in every way… and proceeded to demonstrate his further service until daylight threatened at our windows. As a result, I kept that greeting on my phone for over a week.

“Call Brian,” I told Madame Phone-bot. Technology could be so impersonal and cold. Telephones used to be new, essential technology and while it’s useful now, sometimes it seems more like a portable, publically acceptable masturbation device. Whatever happened to real communication? I wouldn’t trade the letters I’d dictated and sent home to Gabrielle all those years ago for any form of today’s instantaneous missives. Can you imagine it? Oh hey everyone, I posted a message on your Facebook to let you know by the way that I’ve been turned into a vampire but everything’s great, LOL Smiley Face.

“Hello Lestat,” Brian’s cheerful voice broke off the absurd thought.

“Brian, how are you?” I asked as though we’d only spoken last night. It came off sounding far too casual but I think I was expecting him to not answer the call, to be otherwise occupied or maybe simply not care to speak to me just yet.

“I’m good, just out for a bit of a walk with Murphy this morning.”

He gave the impression at least that he was happy. “How nice then – I’m not disturbing you?”

“No, not at all. Ah wait, here we are. Just a minute.”

I heard him ask politely for a bowl of water and exchange easy laughter with whoever was there taking care of such accommodation. For a brief instant, I felt a strange sensation in my chest and wondered what I would feel if he elected to never come back. No, that just couldn’t be a possibility. I stood up and walked over to look out the front windows over the shutters. The only thing on the street was a discarded plastic bag that danced in a gust of wind.

“Okay then,” he said. “Sorry, I’m a bit out of breath. It’s good to hear from you.”

He didn’t ask if anything was wrong. If I’d been calling due to some emergency, he would have picked up on that immediately. “It’s good to hear your voice, Brian. I was thinking about you this evening.” I came away from the windows and related how I’d re-imagined that evening in the bathroom when he’d tended my wounds so lovingly. No innuendo or suggestion accompanied the memory – I wasn’t calling to stir his feelings or mine, for that matter. I honestly just missed him and so that was what I told him without mincing words.

“I miss you too.” That was a low whisper that belonged close to my ear. It would have felt better in person of course, but this would have to suffice. “I like it here, though. There’s plenty to hold my attention and I’ve already insinuated myself into a decent circle of acquaintances. Then I’ll hear something, a word, a laugh… or I’ll read something in passing and think that it’d be something you or Louis would like me to read aloud.”

“Like you’d do in the kitchen, yes. It’s been quiet without you.” He’d often cook for himself with Louis and I gathered at the little island to watch and enjoy the scents of the food and spices. Sometimes, he’d read passages from whatever book he was enjoying which could cover anything from politics to pornography if not one in the same. “I’m pleased that your holiday is agreeing with you. After everything that happened, you really deserve some space.”

“You know that’s not why I’m here.”

“Come now, be honest. Life with us isn’t easy and you’ve never really had a break from it alone.” He’d gone off with Louis to the Berkshires and elsewhere, but that wasn’t the same, not at all. There was a long pause and I could tell he wanted to disagree, wanted to say...what? Ah, it was complicated, wasn’t it? I elected to break the silence. “I wanted to call you privately and apologize, ” I continued speaking,rolling right over his anticipated objection. “and yes, there is a need, Brian. We had our little bit of sweetness when you left, but until Louis pointed it out I hadn’t really realized how much distance I’d put between you and I in the last year. For that, I’m sorry.” 

He didn’t respond right away and that was fine. I could hear the chatter around him and the din of a television. I imagined him in a small roadside tavern seated in a far corner with windows at his back and yes, sunlight on his face. “You did,” he said at length “But I know why you did it, sure. I won’t say your aloofness didn’t bother me, but knowing the reason made it sting a little less.”

“Aloof?” I laughed and made a scoffing noise into the phone. “When am I ever aloof?”

“Right. You want examples?” he countered with an easy voice. “But really. I knew you were distancing yourself because of the uncertainty of the whole situation. I figured that one out well before Louis even shared his opinions on the matter.”

“I’m sure he had a book-worthy diagnosis?”

He snorted. “You could say that. He was pretty angry with you then so if it was book-worthy, it might not have been one I’d have shared aloud.”

“I see.” The image of Louis standing in the middle of the living room at _Maison Chêne_ came to mind, replete with his irritated gestures as he spoke in an exasperated tone.

“He wasn’t wrong I think.”

“Enlighten me?” I requested. I wanted to see if the imagined scene matched the real one.

“Basically he said that you were afraid that you’d lost him forever and that such idiocy – and that was _his_ word at the time, not mine – should never have crossed your mind, as though you had no knowledge of his mind at all. He said it was ridiculous for either of you to frame any event with infinite parameters, when infinity for you is so much closer to a truth not understood by those who usually say such things.”

I couldn’t help but to smile as I sat once more in the darkness. Yes, there was the match: the Louis-puppet in my mind, gesturing as he furrowed his dark brows – and real Louis speaking such words. It was really too perfect. “Mm, and you think that was accurate?” I asked though it came out as more of a statement. “What am I saying? Of course you do. You are both right. I _did_ think he would have been justified in taking you off somewhere and leaving me in the dust.”

Another snort, this one as close to derisive as Brian ever got, at least when he spoke to me “You can’t seriously think he’d do that?”

“When it comes to what I expect Louis to do and what he actually does, there has been more than one surprise since I came back from Italy. I suppose it was a bit of my usual drama to think such a thing. Ridiculous, as he said.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think it was ridiculous and I told him the same that night. You two might have forever, but so what if you say it that way? It’s like how we say the word 'literal', you know? There’s very little that’s ever as literal as our statements might make out, but it’s a way of saying things. Colloquialisms.”

“I bet he loved your countering with that,” I laughed out loud. “Though I’m guessing it would have irritated me even more. Literally.” He laughed then as well and in that instant I yearned to be there in person and see the way his shoulders moved or the way he’d likely have run a hand through his hair. “All joking aside. you know if he had made that choice it would have been hard to swallow. Brian?” I said softly, “You are coming home again, aren’t you?” He sobered and I heard him draw in a pensive breath that in its way reminded me achingly of the one who loved him even more than I did.

“Lestat,” The way he said my name put Mme. Phone-bot to shame. “You and Louis are my home now and while that doesn’t mean I don’t have a choice in returning, what it does mean is that I can’t fathom any sort of home without the two of you.”

When I said nothing he continued because he knew that at least for a moment, I couldn’t. “It’s not a matter of when I’m ready...” he paused and to someone there declined the need for anything at the moment and chose the interruption as a way to turn the subject.”Hey, did you get the package I sent? You haven’t mentioned it.”

“Package?” The change of subject threw me. “Mm, well, now that you mention it, I handed something to Louis this evening before I went out. Perry doesn’t do so well at organizing the mail as you, I’m afraid. If you’re speaking of an envelope, yes. I hope it’s nothing time sensitive because it was rather buried beneath an avalanche of catalogs until tonight.”

“Nothing exactly time sensitive. Did Louis open it?” I heard the smile in his voice.

“I expect so. As I said it was just as I was headed out. When I came home we, well, he was focused on other things.”

“Hence the bath afterward you so enjoy,” he teased in a low and knowing way.

“He’s upstairs now, cutting Z’s.” I laughed.

“Go on and join him. I have to get Murphy out of here. The fireplace is great for a while but he soon overheats and he’s got a girlfriend along the road back to the cottage.”

We exchanged goodbyes and after I ended the call I noted silently that even in that little sentence, he hadn’t used the word home to describe his quarters. Louis and I were home, and if the truth of that statement had made him feel half as good as this affirmation made me feel, then all things were quite right in our corner of the world, even if those corners were continents apart. I thought of Brian and how he might walk along toward his place picturing me as I pictured Louis, and thinking about the depth of our conversation. Now yes, it was time to join my love as morning approached and hold his heart close to mine for the rightness of these things beyond the rocky terrain we all had traversed to reach them once again.

NEXT: Butterflies and Travel Plans


	8. Butterflies and Travel Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lestat and Louis discuss Brian's gift.

****

(Louis)

Lestat and I meandered through the splendid display of jewel-toned beetles and delicate butterflies collected and showcased in suspended upright cases. The Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium is housed within the venerable and structurally impressive US Customs House on Canal Street; we donate extensively to the Audubon Society here in New Orleans and are granted access to their facilities whenever we have a mind to visit. The Insectarium in particular is a good place to go for quiet conversation outside the usual venues.

Even as we inspected the displays, I’d been looking inwardly, reliving the searing memory of Lestat offering himself to me the night before and how he’d fed me to complete and utter satiation. I felt the minute stinging buzz still, a sensation that increased when our bodies brushed in passing or when he took my hand in his. Lestat has a theory that the Blood calls to itself, the Blood of the fledgling always drawn to the maker. He may be right--at times like this, there is a certain magnetism that goes further even than our usual need for contact. He’s right in that it seems to have more to do with the power of the Blood that connects all of us than it does with our individual personalities and emotions. This train of thought fell away when I looked at him.

His face was tranquil as we passed through the shadows between the artfully lighted displays, skin blushed with the blood from his recent feed. He is a beautiful creature and this has been widely spoken of, but it is difficult to look at him and not want to give expression to how he moves me, how his presence alone feeds me and how his least glance ignites a fire in me that ranges from a satisfying, warm glow to a fierce blaze; this is an inferno that does not consume so much as it floods with something that is very close to grace. If that sounds like a contradiction in context with what we are, so be it. It is a frame of reference that works for me.

I had taken a good deal from him last night and upon awakening he kissed me sweetly and asked me to meet him here in an hour or so. He’d been quiet since his arrival, caught up in the swoon; not such a heavy one, but evident enough. It was my joy to watch him become slowly more aware, noting each small sigh, each tiny shiver as he absorbed the simmering mortal blood he’d stolen.

“There now,” I said with a smile, “I see you’re back with me again.”

“I wasn’t so far away, _mon cher_.” Even dressed down, Lestat possesses an innate elegance. The jeans were an older pair, comfortable and fitted to his body perfectly. I always liked him in 501’s - they fit him well and draw the eye to his long legs. The light cotton shirt and the linen jacket were the perfect accents.

He turned from his inspection of smaller, spotted and otherwise patterned _Coleoptera_ and offered his arm. I hooked mine through as I have done so many times before. Linked arms allow a closeness and comfort that clasped hands doesn’t quite realize, for me at least. I expect it is a holdover from the era we were born into; in those days men walked together thus as friends and confidantes and if they were lovers, well how much better to be able to enjoy the closeness in a public sphere.

“I spoke to Brian yesterday morning, just before sunrise.” Lestat said. He glanced over at me. “I was thinking about him while I was in the bath and I felt it was high time to apologize for the distance I’d put between us last fall.”

“And how did that go?” I asked.

“Brian was gracious as expected. He sounds well. Content, even.”

I was glad Brian was well. Glad he’d settled in. “I never got to show you the fine gift he sent us. I brought the letter along. Come, we’ll sit in the butterfly garden and have a look at it,” I said. As I spoke I realized that I wasn’t glad at all. I wished Brian here with us, standing in the middle of this vast space with his head tilted back to look up at the shadowy, arched ceiling or awkwardly pronouncing the Linnaean taxonomic names of the insects. What was I thinking to let him go off that way? Anything might happen to him. I had a sudden longing for the sound of Brian’s voice, his scent—his infectious smile.

“I’m anxious to know what it is. Shall we?” Lestat gestured to the end of the room where a short, double-doored passage led to the enclosed space that housed the butterfly garden. He flicked the bank of switches and the room flooded with a warm radiance. The heat and the light would awaken the insects, but we did not plan on disturbing their cycle for too long. There were benches placed in different areas where one could sit to watch the creatures move from flower to flower. I found this to be an absorbing, serene place.

We sat down and I drew the envelope from my jacket pocket to hand to Lestat, after which I removed the jacket itself. The room was humid and warm and before us the butterflies began to awaken, stretching their wings and pumping their bodies to disperse the heat necessary for flight. A few of them were already fluttering about, exquisite little cloud sulphurs with their mesmerizing, erratic flight patterns; Zebra butterflies with their graceful, narrow wings, began foraging the blue panicles of the small durantia trees.

“I hardly know what to say. He has quite outdone himself, hasn’t he?” Lestat said. His voice held a mixture of admiration, consternation and an underlying current of excitement.

“Have you heard of this place? These other immortals?” I asked. “The names are completely unfamiliar to me.” I realized immediately that the idea of interaction with these immortals was likely responsible for that particular underlying current. 

Lestat shook his head, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “No.” He leaned forward and tapped the letter on his knee. “How did he find them? And my god, this had to have cost him a small fortune.”

“Brian’s very focused when he puts his mind to something,” I said. “And he does have a certain knack for moving easily throughout the strata of humanity. Not easily phased, you know.”

Lestat nodded, fair brows drawn together. “He does. But these are not mortals, Louis. Let’s not even discuss yet why he would take such a risk. How was he able to get in contact with them? Neither of us know who they are. How could he?” He turned and drew one foot and under his thigh and moved closer. “Could this be some sort of trap? A Talamasca thing?” he looked into my eyes and continued “I mean, could they or someone else have used him in some way?”

I thought about it. Brian had done a good job of keeping this surprise under wraps. Of course, when he’d been working on it, I had been focused on Lestat, on what we were trying to accomplish at that time and no one was more aware of that than Brian. He was receptive to me most of the time, but I kept the intrusions as infrequent as I could and David had made good inroads into teaching him how to keep his mind shielded. Still, it was touch and go, even for some of us. A vampire with a particularly strong mind gift would have no trouble taking a look quite undetected. Not to mention one of the more gifted Talamascan agents.

“Anything is possible, of course.” I shifted and moved to lie on my back with my head in his lap; his own movements meshed to make this a seamless maneuver and the next thing I knew, he was smoothing my hair from my brow and insinuating his other hand beneath my head. “But I read Brian’s methodical approach all over this. He was the one who initiated whatever contacts were made in order to secure the…reservations.” I looked into his eyes, oceanic shifts of color; it’s easy to become lost there. I smiled up at him. “I haven’t done anything recently to generate a sudden, vengeful interest. You?”

He laughed. “Very likely. I could probably list a few if I thought about it, but I don’t know that any of them would care enough to pull something this over the top. Still have to wonder who Cedric and Gareth might be.”

“Perhaps Marius might know them?”

“Look who's having second thoughts now,” Lestat said with a tiny grimace.

“I don't like to think Brian would be easily taken in, but as I said, anything is possible. Still, we owe him a proper thank you.”

“Past time you spoke to him, anyway. He seems to have taken a more diurnal schedule so we’ll call him a little later. Better yet, we can Skype. That way we can see him.” He took out his phone and sent off a text message so Brian would know to expect the call.

I reached up and pulled him in for a deep kiss, breathing him in, tasting him. “It was good of you to call. He was anxious about it, the distance as you called it. Thank you.” He moved his hand from beneath my head and pulled me upward, his mouth touching mine. “Do you know how very much I love you, Louis?”

“Show me.”

He kissed me again, slow and searching. His arms tightened and relaxed, the pressure of his mouth on mine waxing and waning, an all-encompassing tidal thing, and every bit as irresistible. When he drew back I found I had no idea how much time had just passed. He was smiling at me, obviously pleased with the effect he had created. “You look a little disoriented, my love,” he teased.

I smiled back, watching an orange and black patterned butterfly light on his shoulder. “Ah, Lestat. Are you going to pretend that you don’t know what you do to me?” I sat up and got to my feet. “Come now. These little creatures need their rest and we have had the lights on for long enough.” He rose and the butterfly fluttered up and back toward the bank of blooming lantana. “Gulf Fritillary,” we said in unison.

“Nerd,” he said.

“Geek,” I answered.

NEXT: Affirmation, Explanations & Gratitude


	9. Affirmation, Explainations and Gratitude

****

(Louis)

“Good morning Brian.” It was odd to say those words and to see him with sunlight flooding a footpath that cut through an impossibly green field viewed through the open door behind him. He had obviously placed his laptop in this position for my benefit.

“Good morning to you, too. It’s so good to see you. So good to hear your voice.” His smile was brilliant and the hungry, needful look in his eyes struck a chord in me.

Before I could say anything, I felt Lestat’s hand on my back and he looked over my shoulder at the screen. “Hello again, Brian. Looks like a beautiful, sunny day there.” 

“For now,” he agreed. “Wind’s in the north, so there’ll be rain later. God, I miss you two.”

“To hell with the weather, eh? You always say what you mean.” Lestat said with a little smile. “Reminds me of someone I know. Excuse me, please. I need to change my clothes.”

“We received your letter and along with your extraordinary gift, mon cher. How on earth did you manage such a thing?”

He flushed with pleasure. “Low friends in high places,” he said. I heard Lestat pass behind me and smiled when I saw Brian tracking his movement with a slightly distracted air.

“Hmm. Yes.” Lestat said, still moving about behind me. “As to that, I am most curious about these low friends.”

“One low friend, actually.” Brian said. “And I guess acquaintance would be the better word. You know him, though.”

“Oh?” Lestat leaned over my shoulder again then he lay down on his side beside where I sat cross-legged with the laptop balanced on my knees.

“I went to Wrack’s place before hours, to drop some paperwork off from you. I got to talking to him and...”

“Wrack?” Lestat interrupted, “When was this?”

“Months ago,” Brian said. “I was thinking about setting something up, a sort of holiday, you know? At the time you were both still working out so many things, so I thought when you got everything ironed out it would be good to get away from everything familiar for a while.”

“I see. So naturally Wrack came to mind?” There was a very slight edge to his voice and I gave him a subtle poke.

“No, nothing like that,” Brian said easily. He was quite used to Lestat’s tendency toward sudden mood shifts. “You’d sent along your approval for two of his, uh…guests, to stay in New Orleans for a while with the usual regulations.” Brian meant regulations with regard to hunting if it was something that must be done during the time the guests had chosen to visit. The business with Wrack was contingent on Lestat’s largesse and mine as well I suppose, though I don’t tend to have much to do with anything operational in that quarter. I’d been surprised at Lestat’s acceptance of the whole idea in the first place, I suspect Wrack afforded him some amusement that completely eluded me.

“Anyway, he was sort of grumbling, you know how he is,” Brian continued, “And he said something about how it wasn’t such a big deal in San Diego. I asked him if there were a lot of places like his, just curious, you know? He said there were, some like his place and some that were a lot more upscale. At that moment, I just sort of nodded, but when I started thinking about it, I thought it might be something a little more intriguing, so I went back to talk to him a little more .”

“I didn’t realize you and Wrack were so friendly,” I said, beginning to share a little of Lestat’s concern. I glanced at Lestat and I didn’t need to read his mind to know that he’d only shelved his thoughts to be discussed at a later date.

Brian gave a tiny shrug. “He’s okay. A little squirrely sometimes, I guess. I went early while he was still tending bar out front. No vampires around, just a couple tourist types. He had Gail come up front and we went and talked in that grim little office of his. He seemed a little reluctant to tell me much at first, but I told him I thought maybe it was something I could do for you both. Anyway, he sort of got the ball rolling. The rest of it was excruciatingly painstaking and convoluted communications with several people until I finally was able to get through to these two vampires who run this place.”

“Really, Brian. You took quite a risk. How could you know that you would not be harmed?” 

He looked slightly abashed, but mustered himself. “Remember when you first gave me your blood?” he asked.

“Of course I remember,” I said, already seeing where he was heading.

“Protection. Marked. Something that could be easily sensed by other vampires, right?”

“It was still a great risk,” I said. He’d placed a great deal of trust in what I’d said, I realized, and while I believed it to be true enough for the most part, I am also aware that we are not exactly the darlings of the vampire universe that it might seem from the tales people have read.

“Maybe it was,” he agreed. “Maybe it still is, but I don’t think so—not from these vampires. If anything, I’d say they were pretty star struck and very pleased at the prospect of having you as guests. It’s not like I did this half-cocked, Louis, and hey, I’m still here, right? And let’s face it - it’s not like it’s really easy to shop for you guys.”

I relented then. It wasn’t right to interrogate him over something he was so obviously pleased about accomplishing toward what he clearly saw as a favorable conclusion. I love the curious mixture of hard common sense and uncanny intuition he displays. His telepathic skill, aside from being able to communicate with me or with Lestat, is minimal, hence the help I’d sought from David. David had also remarked on Brian’s manner of paying close attention to his intuition and posited that it was why he caught on to his lessons so quickly. “I would hazard a guess that the regular infusions of your blood have boosted his ability to no small degree,” David had said carefully. The issue of blood-sharing with mortals was a prickly one for him.

In any case, it was something to be discussed in the future, but as Brian had pointed out, nothing untoward had happened to him and a secret part of me was inordinately proud of him.

“So, are you going to give it a whirl?”

Lestat, body practically vibrating with the questions I knew he wanted to ask, reacted most admirably “You’re damn right we are,” he said. He meant it and again I was struck by how much effort Lestat was putting toward our hard-won reconciliation and was warmed with a suffusion of quiet joy.

“Well, look,” Brian said, always sensitive to timing and the body language he was so good at reading between Lestat and myself. “I need to get a move on here. I’m driving over to Waterville to get some shopping done and to pick up a nice mutton bone for Murphy.” Beside him, we could see Murphy’s tail rotating in ecstatic circles. “Like I said, it’s probably going to rain later and I’d like to be back here before that starts. It’s still not as warm as me and Murphy would prefer,” He looked down briefly to rub the dog’s head vigorously, and I suspect he was also mastering a sudden flood of emotion. “Let me know when you want to leave and I’ll set things in motion.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you again, my Brian.”

“You're welcome, Louis. Anytime,” he logged off abruptly without saying anything more.

I put the laptop aside and threw myself onto Lestat to kiss him deeply. When I drew back to look into his eyes, I felt his deep throated purr. “What was that for?” he asked in a lazy voice.

“Gratitude, my soul. You always, always amaze me.”

He indulged me with a long, languorous kiss, his hands caressing my skin lightly and lovingly. I was breathless when he released my mouth. “Tell me again, Louis, how I amaze you,” he said with a grin. “I live for your praise, you know.”

I nipped at his ear. “There you go with the self deprecation. Perhaps ‘amaze’ isn’t exactly the word.” His playfulness is sexy beyond reason.

“Please. Not “mercurial”, Louis. I cannot bear repetition.”

“Can I help it if that’s the perfect descriptive? There are so many sides to you I despair of cataloging all of them.” The fine silk of his hair begged to be touched, and his eyes closed as I did so. “There is so much I don't know about you,” I said, “So much…ah, but in your own time, yes?” This is what it’s like to have him, to love him, I thought with something that bordered on frenzy. I was grateful for his closed eyes as I arranged my features into a semblance of serenity that I did not feel.

“Well, that’s hardly flattering,” he murmured, drawing me close and performing an elegant maneuver which ended with him atop my body. He lifted slightly so I could slide my hands between us to loosen the belt of his robe. “If it helps, you know me better than anyone else does.” He shrugged the robe from his shoulders and, one a time, freed his arms from the sleeves. His remark triggered a need to enfold him and I pulled him down to me. “I want you to drown in me, Lestat,” .

NEXT - Recollections


	10. Recollections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lestat reminisces on the recent past - and leads up to a surprise he has planned for Louis.

****

(Lestat)

We'd spent well over an hour lying together, touching and kissing, adding tinder to a deeper flame that, for the fact we did not tend it there and then, would find its own way at a later time. Such suppression and payback was an integral part of our life and love and I was sublimely happy to be once more in the sway.

“It’s going on ten,” I announced with a look at the bedside clock.

“Is that a concern?” Louis murmured.

With his hair mussed and his green eyes lazy with sleep and desire, it might have been easy to forget how very lethal he can be, my Gentleman Death. “I’m not concerned, but I do have plans – and so do you.” I said as I sat up on the edge of the bed. For the hundredth time I thought just much better a good mattress was than a coffin for a general feeling of restoration among other things. I stood up and went about getting dressed while Louis lingered.

“I have plans, do I?” His eyes were closed so the pair of brushed grey pants I’d pulled from his closet and tossed his way landed squarely on his head. For that I got the look as both eyes opened and he sat up without a word. 

“Yes, you do. We have plans to be more precise. We have an appointment you could say, around midnight, maybe as late as one, but I thought you might want to step out for a drink first.” He sat on the edge of the bed where I’d been minutes before, holding the pants in one hand while he raked his hair back with the other. “Tell me you’re not wanting to have a lazy night in. I’ve planned a surprise for you.”

“A planned surprise?” He stood and slipped into the trousers as I watched. “And why couldn’t I have a lazy night in for a change? All you wanted to do for three nights in a row last week was stay in and watch movies. I had to meet with Kelsey Serenak by myself and you know she has ideas for more than my investments.”

“Well,” I said with little pause before I went into the adjoining bathroom. “They were good movies.”

He came behind me and spoke to our reflection in the mirror. “You’re impossible.”

“So you keep telling me, but yet, here we are.” I reached up and caressed his cheek. How very beautiful we were together I thought, observing our reflection. It was surreal that we should be what we are and share this life where such moments seemed so utterly mortal. Hundreds of couples had shared a similar vignette as they awoke today, I thought, though ‘stepping out for a drink’ held an entirely different connotation.

“So where are we going, my pretty one?” He stepped back into our room and I followed.

“Now you don’t want me to reveal everything despite your questions.” We both finished dressing and I met him in the doorway. “When you’ve fed, meet me back here and then I’ll explain.” He started down the stairs and then a thought occurred to me. “Wait,” I said. “Just meet me down at the waterfront, down by that old abandoned camelback at the tracks.”

“Alright then.” He gave a brief nod and was on his way. 

It was tempting to follow – it was always tempting to follow and watch the ease with which he now took the infamous little drink. Louis no longer felt such an urgent need need to kill those who willingly or otherwise furnished their blood. The last grand and grisly feed I’d witnessed was upon the man we’d come to refer to as The Perp, but that takedown was more than warranted. In the man’s world the concept of retribution was a familiar one, and though he hadn’t known he was pumping bullets into a vampire – _my_ vampire no less, he couldn’t have been completely unprepared for the way he met his end. It had been gruesome, and when I closed my eyes I could still picture the savagery Louis displayed as he tore into the man’s throat and laid open the fount. It was a rare thing to see Louis reveling in the blood, but he drank with erotic abandon from the man who would have left him for dead and from him, the vital essence to heal the wounds that had been rendered. Even now there remained the half-moon scar low on his back and each time I traced it, I flashed upon that night and how he’d stared at me above the slick tendon and gristle. Ah Louis, yes. In such moments the depth of our nature was frighteningly clear and thrilling and erased any nonsense of his early immortal years. No judge or jury would ever suspect him to be a reluctant soul, content to drink from rats, chickens and anything else left to the imagination.

But, I recalled as I went down the stairs, there had been another witness to his savage display that evening. Brian had been there and he’d come so close--what was it I’d said to him after he knocked out The Perp’s would-be accomplice? Drunk on the moment, I’d said something about taking down his first victim, which in hindsight must have been most alarming. Brian is many things, but he is neither dull-witted or unaware. He knows what drinking from Louis has affected his body as well as his mind and I know he felt the innate surge of want for blood that night. It may have subsided almost as soon as it rose, but surface it had.

And now Brian had gone away from us and the related craziness, and it was good that he had gone, both for himself and for Louis and I – but then again, the latter had been more the reason for his departure. Standing in the empty, unused kitchen, I felt a deep pull of tenderness for him. How many nights had we awoken to the sound of him here clanking a pan and utensils and humming to himself as he prepared a small dinner ? He had cooking amenities in his little house at the back of the courtyard, but claimed our place benefited from the infusion of energy – and certainly when we’d amble down to find him whipping up one delicious-smelling entrée or another, it was impossible not to feel the _joie de vivre_ that emanated from him.

Even a half a world away from us, Brian was here with me as surely as if he would come out of the living room and inquire of my thoughts. There would be time to explore the concerns I had – concerns I knew Louis shared if not yet voiced. This however would not be the night for such seriousness. Tonight was just what Brian would want: Louis and I together planning for the future.

NEXT - FIREFALL


	11. Firefall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lestat's planned surprise is a success and impromptu plans for a journey of a different kind.

****

(Lestat)

Crickets and frogs played a symphony in the weeds and crevices of the dilapidated buildings that dotted this part of the riverfront. Headed out on the far stretch there were no tourists, no cruise ships, not even cargo haulers – it was a relative wasteland where the street lamps had long been shot out and left unrepaired. Beside a line of abandoned rail tracks was the camelback house that stood in defiance of time. It had been there for as nearly as long as I had known this city to be home. Unlike many forgotten homes, the shutters were intact and their paint which had once been a shocking shade of turquoise long since diminished to spotty patches the color of a faded watercolor. The yellow paint I remembered on the house from decades past was non-existent, save for one or two small circles that testified to what once was so long ago. There on the rotted steps sat Louis; a beautiful jewel in the midst of dull decay. His appearance told me he’d fed well, perhaps more deeply than he’d intended. There was a light in his eyes and he had the air of a mortal who’d just finished that essential morning coffee.

“Oh, now don’t you look replenished?” I teased as I stepped up to him and rested against the precarious hand rail. “I’m betting you went straight over to the raucous little street festival on Rampart and found something of a buffet, didn’t you?”

“I’m really that predictable?”

“You are, but most often it’s an admirable trait. Still, there are times when I need to outsmart that characteristic.”

“Ah yes, I’m sure you do so to your advantage more often than I know.” He smiled and for a second I wanted nothing other than to sink my teeth into his neck and taste the blood as it moved through him. “Do tell me how you’ve outwitted my dreadful consistency this evening, Lestat.”

I struck a deliberately pompous pose on the cracked sidewalk, hands on my hips. “I knew that if I told you of my plan for tonight – our plan – my plan for you that is…” He lifted his eyes and shook his head but allowed me to continue. “I knew that you’d fall into the same old objections. _‘Lestat, I need to find a jacket,’_ you’d say, or _‘I want to get that nice pair of gloves you gave me first’_. You’d accuse me of going too far, and we’d be delayed or wind up frustrated to the point of not even going.”

“I can’t imagine anyone would ever accuse you of going too far,” he said with mock seriousness. “But you mean aloft. We’re taking to the skies? Any special reason? And by the way, you do tend to go so high that it’s freezing, but I’ve obviously made that point before.”

“I’m taking you out to sea for a special reason, yes.”

“And why can’t we just take the Fairline?” He gestured a thumb behind him where our luxury cruiser with its impressive flying bridge was docked not all that far away. 

The truth was that I hadn’t actually thought of it but there was another reason. “You’re spoiled, you know that? Come, let’s walk for a bit.” I extended my hand and he pulled himself up and into my arms.

“I live with you, how could I not be spoiled?” He performed the Louis version of a wink, kissing my cheek. He continued speaking about how long it had been since we'd use the boat, but I was only half-listening, thinking about that wink and repressing a smile. You see, he can't wink. Some people can do it with one eye, some with both alternately, but he hasn’t done it either of those ways since I’ve known him and as far as I can work out, I think he's completely unaware of it. When he winks he closes both eyes much like a contented cat will do. He poked an elbow into my ribs. "Are you listening to me?"

Instead of answering, I secured my arms around his waist and slowly rose into the air. For the briefest moment uncertainty ruled his expression. “Don’t worry, my love. Low altitude only this evening, I promise.” He nodded and we sped off over the black water below.

****

*** *** *** ***

Scattered across the Gulf there are many abandoned oil rigs, some dating back to Hurricane Betsy in the mid-sixties. Outposts, they are; a place to be quiet and to take in the vast night and for this, I don’t use them nearly as often as I’m sure might be prescribed. The dark Gulf swelled beneath us as we moved and as I’d vowed, my cruising height didn’t even take us far enough up to be a worry for small planes. There was no need to jet up to the stratosphere in such a desolate area as this and in any case, it was not far enough offshore to necessitate such a rise. There was no one to see us save for a few night fishermen and in their small boats they’d have thought our passing to be a large bird, or a flock of shearwaters perhaps, migrating northward.

Ahead, I spotted the derelict platform with requisite port and starboard lights for ship traffic and at the highest point a blink red light to ward off aircraft. It occurred to me then as I tightened my hold around Louis’ waist that if those lights weren’t there, anything or anyone may well smack right into the platform or the gantry. My overactive imagination took hold of that idea for a few minutes and I saw it like a cartoon. There I was sailing along without a care then crashing into a steel beam all because it stood invisible against the night sky. Cue the appropriately comical clank and clatter followed by the groaning and cursing as I tumbled toward splashdown. Fortunately for both of us my senses were on point this evening, and such calamity was avoided.

Briefly I sped higher, up at least to where the air was decidedly cooler if not freezing. Before he could object in any way, there it was - the hulking, dark platform lay directly below us and with a thought that came as simply as exhalation, we were upon it. This gift, as it’s called – upper case grandiosity aside, is one we don’t use often but one which I like more than I might admit on any given night. 

Louis is correct in saying that I’m prone to excessive height and why shouldn’t take advantage of such ability? I’ve flown in such a way over the cold North Sea, over the stunning neural highways of Los Angeles and above the frozen moonlight peaks of the French Alps. Louis on the other hand does not often employ the many talents of the blood. He will use the skill for deception and mind tricks when he feeds, but you can bet he does that more for the comfort of his chosen than for himself. Like all immortals, he will use the gift of speed when it becomes necessary, and the ability for fire starting on cold evenings. Other than those instances, he is reluctant and I can’t disrespect his reasoning. These things, these… inherited talents are an ancient connection to something which even now is not fully comprehended, and more than that, when we demonstrate them we become somehow more monstrous; our otherness is amplified especially in our own minds. We become that thing that scratches along walls and makes a child hide beneath the covers, we become entangled in the legends that had villagers burning torches and carrying pitchforks. 

He holds to that, Louis does, and still to this night that renders him perhaps the most human among us. I need that you know? I need the way he grounds me. Life can’t be one big jet-set, flying over the hemisphere, rock star, body-thieving spectacular now can it? He brings me back to myself, and believe it or not we live a relatively ‘normal’ life because of it. That is why on any random night, Louis, my beautiful companion, might elect to walk to the corner market to purchase everyday items. Just a box of trash bags this evening? Oh right he’d think, I’d better get some paper towels and more food for the courtyard cats. That will be twelve dollars, good customer who is staring at me in a very unsettling way...a lot like that blond guy who sometimes comes with you. Yes, yes, but of course there will always be misadventures and incidental heartaches; after all, we are in the end who and what we are and will be for all eternity.

“You haven’t yet come down,” he said quietly as he stepped away and rested the small of his back against a rail that overhung a broken scaffold.

“Hm? Oh yes.” I broke free of my thoughts and took his hand. “Isn’t it the perfect location? You cannot tell the difference between the sky and the sea.”

“Very true. The ships aren’t routed in this direction now, but it’s a good thing the markers are still lit for the fishermen and pleasure craft.”

“Not for long.” I jumped up on the catwalk, walked to the edge on the squeaky girder and with the touch of my hand killed the glaring red lamp that interfered with the inky sky above. I imagined the look on his face and before he could chastise me, I brought the light to life again. “See?” I said and shut it off once again. “You worry too much.” I went back to stand beside him and thought aloud about the time. I was wearing a three-thousand dollar watch and the idiots who made it couldn’t incorporate a light on the dial.

“Maybe you should have thought of that while you were up there,” he offered with a short laugh as he brought me against his chest.

“Very funny, Louis. You should…” My suggestion broke off when over his shoulder I saw a long, thin streak in the heavens. “Ssh, enough talking. It’s time.”

“Did you arrange for some grand spectacle way out here?”

“I couldn’t take credit for this event, no. Come, lie beside me.” I eased down onto the grated iron and with a look that asked just what I was up to, he moved to my side. The liquid music of the water against the pilings was hypnotizing. I was lost to the sound until I heard Louis draw in a breath as a long streak blazed across the vast sky. When it disappeared, he propped himself up on one elbow and turned to me.

“The Geminids,” he said with spreading smile. “You remembered when I completely forgot.”

“Once in a while I come through, right?” I reached up and ran my thumb against his brow.

“Marvelous,” he said in an exhalation of deep approval. “Stars falling around us in the middle of a dark sea. Only you would come up with such a plan.”

He sat up and shifted around a bit, lying back so that his head was settled comfortably on my belly. I had no complaint; the position was somehow innocent and intimately erotic at the same time, a thing he often managed without deliberate thought. I was also afforded a perfect view of his face as he watched. As the brilliant lines across the sky grew longer and more frequent, I sang a song in old French that was a cross between a love song and a lullaby, and as I observed the rare child-like delight on his face, I thought that the combination was quite fitting indeed. I don’t know just how long we lay there, but when the number of trails diminished he sat up and turned to look at me.

“Thank you,” he said simply.

I rubbed a hand along his back. “Your pleasure is my pleasure. I have a lot of making up to do in that regard.” He started to speak, no doubt to say in some way that penance was unwarranted, but before he could, there came another meteor, a large one scratching orange fire low on the horizon. “Look there: A private encore.” I said as I stood and pulled him up alongside.

“If you were on land you’d never be able to see one coming in that low,” he agreed. “How beautiful...” He leaned his head against my shoulder as we stood against the railing and watched it burn away.

“So how did I do?” I kissed his cheek softly. “My surprises for you aren’t always so pleasant.”

“This one was, most certainly. I had wanted to view the Perseids shower in November, but it stormed the entire weekend. Even if I’d remembered to look skyward this evening, there would have been no comparison to the visibility we just enjoyed.”

I’d moved away from his side as he spoke and stood on the opposite side of the platform, leaned back against the rail to look at the expanse of stars. “Do you recall what they looked like through mortal eyes?”

He gave me one of many familiar smiles I loved; the warm, pensive expression that came as he slowly closed and reopened his eyes. “I do remember. I used to ride into the fields or take a pirogue to the middle of the lake much as we’ve done tonight, but they appeared nothing like this. Dimmer and so many were not visible at all, even back when the skies were so much darker.” His long fingers traced a path against the backdrop of stars and I nodded with what was surely an equally familiar smile. 

I said nothing for several moments, tracking a satellite passing overhead. “The first night I saw the heavens with these eyes, every notion I’d ever had of the realm of God dissolved. When I looked above the Paris lights, I was in the firmament. I was engulfed in it endlessly, though my feet never left the ground. Nothing could be so impossibly deep and vast as what I beheld. My legs buckled and I fell to the floor, overcome by the sight.” This time it was Louis nodded in complete understanding. “A few nights ago, you said something that got me thinking.” I heard the worn rail creak under my weight. Falling off the rig into the water, humorous as it would be, would not be the preferred end to this evening. Louis’ expression, had I not known better, intimated he might find it all too entertaining. I continued, “You made the comment that at times it seems you barely know me.”

“Lestat, you know I was not trying to get under your skin,” he began.

Before he could say another word I was in front of him. "My skin is just fine. You worry too much about upsetting me,” I chided gently as I kissed the back of his hand. It was all I could do to not let my lips trace the visible veins to his wrist and for the second I held his hand, he knew and shared my hunger. I looked to the sky once more to regain my composure and watched two tardy meteors fall into Orion’s arms. “I wasn’t at all upset by what you said,” I continued. “You know me better than anyone and there’s not a soul who would argue that statement. Still, you know this is me; what you’ve read, what you’ve been told and yes what you’ve come to know in our time together.” His eyes held a trace of concern as he silently waited out my pause. “I think it’s time I let you in on the missing chapter to _The Vampire Lestat_.”

“What do you mean by that, exactly?” He attempted the query most innocently, but in it I heard enough hint of _‘Oh no, what now?’_ to answer with a shake of my head and what I hoped was a reassuring bit of laughter. “Oh don’t worry, there isn’t a hidden novel waiting at home on your nightstand. No tabloids either.” As his face softened I thought about his question and whether to answer it with what I’d originally intended to say. For a moment, this physical location seemed too foreign and suffocating. The blackness of sky and water emphasized our intrusion and as Louis searched my face patiently, there came a second where I wanted nothing more than to end the scene, exit stage left and leave the audience breathless for a continuation. Sometimes however, the wisdom I’ve acquired along the way and more than that, Louis's patience, coaxes me back from the shadows.

“What I mean my love, is to ask how you’d feel about making a detour before we head off to the mysterious luxury Brian has arranged for us?”

“Hm…” Once again that slightly amused, slightly suspicious look that morphed as he began to understand my meaning.

“Yes,” I affirmed. “To the place of my immortal birth. We’ve talked before but it never came to pass. I think with all that’s happened and for where we’re at with one another now, the time is right. What do you say?”

NEXT: The Tower


	12. The Tower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A side trip to France - Lestat brings Louis to the place where his immortal life began.

**(Lestat)**

The time between proposing the idea of returning to France and our being on the flight to my homeland passed quickly. Over the years, there had been many discussions about our lives before one another as well as the times we had been parted. Yet even after all our time together, there came a point where, for one reason or another, silence replaced reminiscence. There were still crudely marked exclusion zones for both of us; wastelands of memory that we preferred to avoid.

I looked over toward Louis, reclined in one of the buttery-soft leather seats, his eyes closed. Strange to think how, decades earlier, he'd authored the infamous novel about us and how he thought he knew enough of me to put it to paper. He had since admitted that he’d written it as much to provoke me into showing myself as anything else, the truth was that, for all the holes in his knowledge, all that I’d kept from him, he _had_ known me in some ways better than I’d known myself.

Turbulence rattled the cabin and I looked out the window to see voluminous, towering clouds illuminated by flashes of lightning. A check of the weather on my phone led me to believe that the cold predicted to settle in over Paris would bring snow before morning. I followed Louis’ example, reclined and closed my eyes until we landed.

**************

By the time the wheels met the tarmac, the snow had begun to fall. I scowled as I pulled the thin jacket tight against my chest and followed Louis down the steps to the waiting car. We were already cutting it close on time, and the weather wouldn’t make it any easier. I looked at the sleek Peugeot coupe with appreciation. It was stunning, an opalescent white that looked like something the snow had conjured for our arrival. I might have opted for a Citroën, but Louis selected the sportier model before I could inform the rental agent. He’d argue his choice was in deference to my tastes but when it comes to cars, I suspect that he gets more of a thrill from the vehicles I choose and the way I drive them than he’s willing to admit. Luckily the drive tonight wouldn’t be around any winding mountain curves, but time was of the essence, so buckle up as they say.

“She should handle quite well _Monsieur_. The wind will settle toward dawn.” The valet nodded courteously. I found him exceptionally attractive with his high-clipped hair and eyes of the deepest sapphire blue. They reminded me of when Louis and I had visited the American Museum of Natural History and I’d fallen in love with the Star of India. I’d raved about it for weeks afterward, even coming up with little plots to steal it which were tempered with disapproving, eyebrow raised glances from Louis. Brian had been momentarily thrilled by one devious plot I suggested and for poor Louis, it had turned into a humorous _‘what am I going to do with you two’_ moment. But this valet with his gemstone eyes? I thought could steal him quite easily

“We’ll be off then, thank you,” Louis said politely, breaking my stare. I caught his stern expression before he ducked into the car. With a smile, I tipped the valet and watched as he walked away. He was but a distant memory even as I sank into the supple leather seat and looked toward my passenger. “What?” I asked, nonplussed. “I could have used some replenishment.”

“You’ll get your replenishment soon enough,” he said far too casually, as though the promise of drinking from him was nothing at all to me. I let that promise shut me up, and put the car into gear. Of course the fastest way to travel would have been to simply take to the air, but I hadn’t even suggested it. Why would anyone want to travel that way, up in the freezing wind when they could have the comfort and command of a luxury vehicle? The other factor if I was honest is that I wasn’t exactly in a hurry. I switched the sound system onto some non-descript soft jazz and looked over at Louis who had been rather quiet.

“What’s on your mind, my love?”

“Nothing in particular; there are times when I yearn to see all of this in the light of day.” he gestured toward the night landscape beyond the window then let his hand rest on my thigh. “The pictures I’ve seen online are beautiful.”

“Careful now with Googling me; you might find things you don’t want to see.” I teased.

“I’ve Googled you so often, I’m sure I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Ah, a well-served double entendre – how nice.” I laughed easily. “This isn’t nearly so picturesque as you’d see in the Auvergne; the hills here are soft and rounded - this is river country. The mountains where I am from are blanketed in green all spring and summer. I used to spend hours and even nights away from home just to be in the fresh air with the grass beneath my feet.”

“It’s quite surreal; we were worlds apart without much thought to the future.”

I nodded in agreement. Surreal indeed, but then again the whole of our existence could be encapsulated by that word. “There I was bumbling through the forests and fields completely unaware that my life would soon end – then begin once more.”

“I really wish I could have somehow known you then.”

“Eh. I was probably an asshole.”

“What?” He laughed at my unexpected reply. “Why would you say that?”

“My father was an asshole as were my brothers – they were deluxe assholes, actually.”

“Not the run-of-the-mill kind,” he said seriously, easing back into his seat. “Were they really that dreadful?”

“Keep in mind that my apparent arrogance was distilled through the six that came before my birth.”

“Interesting.“

He said nothing further and I couldn’t help but to think of the life I’d had as a youth. I was never satisfied, but had I placidly accepted my apparent lot in life, I wouldn’t be who and what I am now. “You know, I tell myself that it was all necessary.” This I said not knowing if he was listening. “I remember the monastery I ran to as a boy and how I thought I would be happy to spend the rest of my mortal life in such a place. It would have gotten me out of the castle and definitely served to anger my father, but...” I shook my head. “Despite all my allusions toward being a saint since, I can’t seriously fathom that I’d have stayed in that place for long.”

“At the time you were no doubt attracted to the security and the comfort of routine. No voices raised in anger or accusation. I can understand the appeal of such a place quite well,” he said. “Your home life was at once boring and abrasive--and with that mind of yours, the idea of learning must have also have been a powerful attraction.”

“Undeniably, yes. But of course that was not in the cards.”

“I’m so glad you didn’t hide yourself away from the world.” he said and turned to look at me. With his head leaned back against the seat, the dark silk of his hair spilled against the cream colored leather in a most inviting way. He gave my thigh another squeeze and settled back, closing his eyes. By the time I pulled up the long drive that led around to the back entrance, he had dozed off. I killed the engine and looked up at the exterior façade. There were lights concealed in the landscaping, angled to affect a welcoming ambiance.

“Louis darling, we’ve arrived.” I leaned over and stroked his arm. He blinked as he saw the house over my shoulder.

“This? Lestat it’s beautiful.”

“It is, yes.” I nodded. “A little overdone perhaps.”

“Would it be anything but?” he countered as he got out and walked to the back to open the trunk. “I didn’t expect it to be a drab country house, but this is really something regal." His glance strayed to the high, round tower standing ghostly in the falling snow some distance from the manor house. He made no comment, he simply gazed at it for several long moments before turning back to me.

I led the way to the side entrance that put us in an immaculate kitchen. The very fact that I’d been led to conservancy of the place was a story unto itself. It’s sufficient to say that it became a choice between that or letting it pass forever into nothing more than a memory beneath backhoes and bulldozers. At the eleventh hour, I had relented and in typical fashion, came out for the better. I had my reasons and those reasons had nothing to do with the weddings, corporate affairs and assorted dignitaries renting the place for weeks or months at a time. Fiscally, it had proven worth every penny of renovation investment, and as one who had the opportunity to review the cash on the books before it was funneled outward to other venues, Louis would agree.

“I can see why it draws the revenue it does,” he commented as he made a cursory inspection of the large kitchen.I blinked, even though it was not exactly a surprise that he commented on the very thing I’d been thinking; he did so quite often. It has become familiar, but It gives me a curious little thrill when he does it nonetheless. It was a testament to his very strong will, a rebellion of sorts against the barrier between maker and fledgling that had always been an anathema to him. If he could not break through, why then he would just find a way around it.

“Well, Lestat?” I blinked again and he gave me an enigmatic little smile. “Are you going to take me on the grand tour?”

 

NEXT: 13 - Initial Impressions


	13. Initial Impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tour of the manor house.

****

(Lestat)

From the kitchen, we stepped through into the dining hall. A table to seat twelve was centrally placed between two massive chandeliers original to the previous resident’s tastes. It was impressive enough, but as we rounded the corner at the back of the grand foyer, I set down our overnight bag and watched Louis’ reaction bloom in exactly the way I’d anticipated. The harlequin black and white tile floors were immaculately polished, the antique gilded mirrors hung in perfect symmetry, and wickedly macabre classical canvases hung in juxtaposed randomness. My personal favorite was a large, framed print of Philip Galle’s _Triumph of Death_. It hung on the back wall, behind the staircase and to its far right just before a concealed doorway to the older part of the estate. My second favorite work in this area was a stained glass composition detailing a young man flanked by wolves. Well, at least Armand had incorporated that much, though I was certain he’d have seen it as some ironic slight rather than any homage to _La Famille de Lioncourt_. It didn’t go unnoticed by Louis, who walked over and ran his hand along the detail of the huntsman’s golden hair. He might have become lost in the significance of it had he not seen me standing just beyond the front staircase toward the main entrance. I held out one hand in in invitation and he came to my side. Naturally, his eyes were drawn upward as I knew they would be, and again I took in his reaction.

Centrally hung at the top of the staircase was an enormous painting and as I had once been powerless to resist, so too was Louis as he moved toward it. I followed, but he didn’t seem to know I was there until he turned to say something and nearly fell back onto me.

“Is it...?” his voice was oddly hoarse.

“The original, yes. _The Temptation of Amadeo._ ” 

The painting was well known in our coven. An androgynous man-child with enormous black wings, painted in the style of Botticelli if, like Picasso, he’d have had a so-called blue period of depression. It loomed over the staircase in proclamation. I don’t know that even I would have been so egotistical to hang such a thing in a place of such prominence, but then my maker hadn’t blessed me with such artistic renderings, had he?

__“And this is on display all the time, this and the other artwork?”_ _

__I nodded, “A hall of horrors for all to enjoy. The tourists eat that up and you know it.”_ _

__“Not unlike the theaters of old, hm? Art imitating the life we know and vice versa.” He moved up the stairs to where one loses perspective for the painting and gains an appreciation for the brushstrokes. “Such a talent. How it must have been for Marius to feel such reverence and lust at once.”_ _

__“It’s a mix that clouds your judgment, that’s all I can say.” I shook my head and headed back down the steps toward the concealed door. He didn’t immediately descend, so I waited in the shadows, admiring the stained glass huntsman. Armand had once told me he felt obliged to include it, can you believe that? Should I begin a dissertation on what he might have been otherwise obliged to do? I must have been visibly sneering along with the thought judging by the expression on Louis’ face as he approached and watched me entering the code into the door lock._ _

__“You aren’t very good at concealing your disdain for the previous tenant,” he said blandly._ _

__“I never claimed to be, nor do I care much whether…” My words ceased for the look on his face for I had quite literally opened a door to the past. In this section, the walls were thousand-year old stone and while the preservation team had shored up the walls, they had been under strict orders to make no changes without my approval and for that reason it was relatively the same as it had been the night my life was forever changed. Louis looked stricken for a second and anyone else might have thought his outstretched hand on a rough ledge was to steady himself, but I knew it was more to absorb the sensation of the place than to repel it. Always in this life there came the fascination. Off again to our left, then right up a narrow staircase that had one branch from the continuing upward spiral. This led to the one room I’d insisted be minimally updated._ _

__Louis looked around and then sat in one of the ornate chairs at the far end of the room. It was not often that he looked tired, but there was no other description tonight._ _

__“It’s a lot to take in. They really did a wonderful job.” I said as I took off my shoes. I’d had the floors leveled and tiled in a shade of medium brown and wisely, heated. The room itself was understandably cold and for the weather outside, damp. As one who had been raised within such walls, it had been easy to anticipate such an issue, and as such I’d had a modern gas fireplace installed again off the back of the kitchen wall. With one push of a button, warmth began to fill the room. Yes, there was something to be said for modern convenience. I turned and observed that while he still looked fatigued, Louis had begun to look at least more relaxed. “Feeling better?” I asked as I loosened the cuffs of my shirt._ _

__“Yes,” he said quietly. He stretched a little and got up to look at the sparse items on the small dresser. “Over the years, I have to confess I’ve imagined what it would look like but I was entirely off the mark.”_ _

__I could tell he was still turning things over in his mind, and revisiting the damned painting for one thing; the first time I saw it my reaction was the same except that with the wonder I’d felt there was also the ever-present fuming anger that went hand in hand with the subject matter. With that still on my mind, I looked at Louis once more. He offered me his beautiful smile and nothing else mattered._ _

__“Thank you again,” he said as he came and took me into his arms. “This can’t be as easy for you as you make it seem.”_ _

__I shrugged. There was a lot of history here to be certain. In this space, I became something that the child Lestat’s nightmares could never have conjured and far more famous than any actor I’d ever set out to become oh so long ago. Still, for all the time that had passed and all the strangeness in between then and now, I’d let this become little more than a snapshot in time._ _

__“There is little to this place for me now, but the fact that you are here with me makes a great difference.” I held him to me and shivered when his hair brushed my collarbone. “I never could have known it, but the atrocity put upon me in this place, my death and rebirth, led me to you. For that there will never be regret.” I stepped back and savored the momentary exchange where the honesty of what we were to one another obliterated all else._ _

__“Is this the room where it happened?” he asked._ _

__“No, no. Tomorrow. We’ve had quite enough for tonight. This is just a stopover room, safe against the daylight. The tower itself is much taller, though from where we entered, you would not it is not evident how much further up the staircase ascends; this is only a small part of what is left from the original stone gatehouse that would have been the entry to the bailey. This and the tower itself are what is left from the original motte-and-bailey arrangement. You can see the outline of some of the ruined wall, but not much else, and much of that is already covered with snow." I could tell that despite the normalcy in his question, he had been thinking of the act itself and then for a moment I saw it in my own mind like a giant advertising poster for a low-budget movie. Nothing like it could occur today outside the magic of Hollywood, and that made me smile. I was getting to be one of the Old Ones that modern vampires talked about as if they were urban legends and nothing more. It was no wonder to me at times that Akasha had wanted to kill them all. I don’t think I’d met one I could tolerate for longer than an hour or two._ _

__“Lestat?”_ _

__“Mm?” There was Louis, waiting for me in bed, propped against the pillows. I wondered if I’d zoned out for a while and felt that if I had, he’d have left me to it given our surroundings. Regardless, there he was and I wasn’t going to resist the invitation. I shed my clothing and settled in at his side. It had been almost two-hundred and fifty years since my creation in this place, and nearly as long since I’d given that same life to the one who lay beside me. Not for the first time I hoped and reassured myself that I’d done it in a kinder fashion if such a thing was even possible._ _

__NEXT: 14 -The Revelation of the Bones; Part One_ _  



	14. The Revelation of the Bones - Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Night two at the Tower.

(Lestat)

The next evening I woke before sunset and lay for a while thinking over where I was and that, at last, Louis was with me. Odd how it felt completely natural and yet in another sense, it felt like a violation of one vampire code or another. Thou shalt not bringeth thy fledgling to the site of thy turning, or something like that. Well, rules be damned right? As a matter of fact, I’d be breaking my own code of conduct if I didn’t disobey a few laws.

My agitation was born of hunger and so I dressed and waited for darkness to overtake the light. In the meantime, I went out into the passageway and to its abrupt end that offered two alternate choices behind the doorway to the right. The staircase up led to the tower, and the staircase down led to the old dungeon. I leaned my head on the door and inhaled the deep, earthy scent of the thick wood. During the renovations, I gave the workmen fits about finding an impenetrable material that could be faced with salvaged wood from the original door. In the end they gave me bank vault quality over which the faded grey lumber was placed. Why? Who sees it? Who cares? This isn’t on any of the public tours, but I care and that’s all that mattered.

By my watch, the sun had set enough to venture out. I recalled the first night I had set out after Magnus had turned me; the first mortal I’d encountered was the unfortunate coachman. All these lifetimes later the taste of that first blood has not faded from my memory. Now, perched on a low rooftop, I yearned for not only the exquisite flood upon my tongue, but that first dark victory as the man struggled in my arms only to arrive at an even sweeter relent. Whether savage or tender in delivery, that moment of realized connection is indescribably intimate.

I set my sights upon a homeless man in the desolate square of the nearest village. Dipping into his mind tI was able to discern that he’d been unable to escape his present situation after a series of financial devastations. His face brightened when an old man opened the church doors and called him over. He was given a thick blanket and a bag of what looked to be assorted toiletry items, but more important to him was the styrofoam take-out box of steaming food. He bowed in thanks and then hurried to a doorway out of the wind where he eagerly began consuming the meal. Well my friend, we find ourselves in similar circumstances tonight, I thought as I walked toward him. He looked up, wondering not simply who I was but what a well-dressed man of means would want with him here in the middle of nowhere.

“Don’t be afraid, Timothée ,” I said with a smile.

“Do I know you?” he asked around a mouthful of potatoes and peas.

“No, and it doesn’t matter if you know me.” I held my eyes to his, thinking as ever how easy it was to mesmerize a victim. I had probably done it that very first night without any effort. Timothée rose and came to stand before me and I collected him in my arms. There was no need to draw out the process; with the so-called evil-doer, oh yes, there was amusement to be found in their fear and futile hatred, but this man was on the opposite end of that spectrum. I sank my teeth into the pulsing, thick vein in his neck and as I had on that first night, sighed for the relief, the utter benediction of the blood. There was only instinctive struggle, and I quieted his efforts with a reflected image from his own mind of a long ago night where he’d enjoyed the warmth of a friend’s home, plenty of laughter and a good winning card game. I rose from the drink and wiped first my mouth, then his. No need to look disheveled my man. Potatoes in the beard doesn’t befit a man who will wake up with a hefty wad of cash in his pocket.

I laid him down against the wall and covered him well with the thick tartan blanket. Quid pro quo tonight; a win for both parties. I got more satisfaction out of that end than anyone might expect, and far less than I was given credit for over the times when I killed with a bit too much exuberance.

It was a short rise and flight back to the estate - with the renovations it had been rechristened with a properly elitist name, but I referred to it mostly as The Tower for obvious reasons. As I moved through the air, the snow stung my face and I was thankful for the heat of the blood as a contrast. When I came down upon the walkway at the side of the house I noted that my hair was covered with ice crystals and I shook like a mad dog until my curls were left in utter disarray. It was this image I presented to Louis as I walked into the house and found him still in the bedroom. He was looking at a map of the original property boundaries, drawn from a time who knows how long ago. I’d mandated its procurement before any restoration was done and as such delayed the whole process, but what can I say? Details always matter.

Louis turned to look at me and then reached for a towel from a shelf in the adjoining bathroom. He tossed it to me and I ran it over my hair briskly as he watched. There were times I knew he held questions at bay, simply for the fact that I could never furnish adequate answers. One can never truly know the interpretations of another’s mind through mere description of an event. Were we to ask one another to describe our most recent drink for example, a narrative could never collect each nuance. There is but one way to know, and that is to be the other person, to inhabit their consciousness and feel along with them and every couple, at least when times are good, share this unspoken desire for such union. Sometimes it’s what makes sex so good because sex gets you pretty close to that state of being. At times then I could see in his eyes that desire to be me and it was the same with my wanting to be him from time to time. Luckily for us, there was one way to share that link and it was perhaps the greatest blessing of this existence, and ours to share for all eternity.

“Were you able to keep most of the land?” he asked, breaking his stare and gesturing toward the map.

“A good deal of it, yes. There was a little over a hectare over in the back north that I sold simply to avoid further argument with a family that’s been in this area almost as long as this property has stood. It’s not as if it compromises whatever functions are held on these grounds. Have you been outside yet?”

“I was waiting for you.”

I gave the barest of nods in reply. “Are you thirsting? Do you need to hunt? If so, I’ll return the favor and wait for you.”

“I’m good,” he said. I smiled at the phrase because it was most definitely Brian-speak and as if he realized it as some slip of character, he restated it as he circled my waist with his arms from behind. “It can wait until later,” he purred in my ear.

“Mm, indeed it can,” I replied as I turned and welcomed the luxury of his kiss. “Come then,” I said in a murmur against his cheek. I stepped back, raked a hand through my hair and led the way down to the wooden door to the rooms of my past.

NEXT: Revelation of the Bones - Part Two


	15. The Revelation of the Bones - Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Upper Room and the Dungeon.

(Lestat)

_Light_ I thought, and fire rose from the torches along the wall. I’d always felt that particular mind-power to be a tawdry gesture, but admittedly it came in handy. Louis paused ahead of me and flattened himself against the wall. I began to move around him to take the lead, then hung balanced on the edge of the crumbling stone. For an instant, I longed for the horrific odor and the scratch of the stone against my cheek as the blood scent overpowered the noxious bloom of decay. _Sweet deliverance so long ago, my love_. This thought, remained private as I caressed his cheek without speaking and in that same silence he followed.

Along the wall there were individual cells barred with flat, medieval iron. Undoubtedly Magnus had kept the young men confined for some time before using whatever parameters had driven his choice.

“Oh,” I heard Louis draw in a sharp breath as we stepped fully into the room.

There was only one large torch here, but it lit as easily as the others and threw shadows to dance along the curve of the room like the spirits of those who had died in this place. “The night I was brought into this life, after the killing fire had spent itself and after I had explored the riches of the inner chamber,” I paused in the recollection as in my mind I saw the splendor of my fur-lined cape once more. It really had been something magnificent, and that night when I had seen it draped over the sarcophagus, it had aroused a deep emotions ranging from pride to grief. Imagining it along with those beautiful garments, the brocade and the Valenciennes lace, I felt nearly the same and could not restrain the smile that came to my face. “Forgive my distraction. To think of that night and how overwhelmed I was of course by the treasure and jewels, and there I was full of love and anger and even smugness.” I laughed and shook my head. “And all the crying then, so theatrical it was and for that, in some ways it was absolutely perfect. The irony alone is worthy of laughter in retrospect.”

“To see the world with that new vision is very overwhelming, I’ll agree,” he demurred, “It still is, truthfully. That you were with me as a new world unfolded is something I hold sacred.I can’t imagine what I’d have done without you.”

The thought was appreciated because I’d had no one to teach me anything about being a vampire, let alone bestowing the life to another. As quickly as the warming thought came, it departed as I turned toward the center of the room. All of the young men I’d found here, why had they never gotten the chance to live as I’d lived in this life? Why were they not somewhere in the world be it dungeon or palace, hearing the one they loved express such sentiments? Why me? It was a question that to this very night hadn’t received an answer.

Feeling the change in my mood, Louis advanced toward the center of the room. Beneath his feet, there was a dark stain concentrated in a deep groove that led to a circular depression. It created the startling impression of a blood rimmed eye, most fittingly. Realizing this as he stepped back for perspective, he gasped. “The bodies,” he spoke with the singular flat tone he used most often when his emotions threatened to overwhelm him. “Of course. Those he’d thrown here to die. _Mon Dieu_.”

That last he said in his usual quiet manner, but the horror of the thought was evident in his expression. “There were thirty-three corpses piled where you just stood.” He looked behind himself as though to assure himself that none had arisen. “Not one of them could have been older than twenty-two, though of course it was hard to determine. Most of them were dressed in finery to match any I might have had in the day and some were dressed in rags. I’ve questioned whether they might have all come to this place as uneventful creatures and been offered garments and jewels as props for an audition that they ultimately failed.”

Louis shook his head in a disjointed way. “What a terrible thing, and as you told it, for them to be cast here into darkness, fed minimally while the corpses rotted outside their cell?”

“Corpses that looked suspiciously like themselves.” I added.

We stood in silence looking at that unyielding stain, and quite without thinking, I knelt to the floor as I’d done that first night and pressed my cheek to the cool, damp stone. I inhaled deeply, letting the dank, sharp smell of water, moss, and yes, blood, penetrate my mind. _Oh lost souls what you gave for all that I have gained_. Did I sigh out loud for the intensity? If Louis had joined me in the experience I wouldn’t have found it strange for as we agree, there is nothing that escapes fascination. But he waited respectfully and as I stood, he placed one hand on the small of my back as he came to my side.

“Dreadful,” he whispered. “Left to rot away like meaningless waste.”

I felt a sudden shift in my emotions, a somberness that was eclipsed by something greater though I could not have pinpointed it if I’d tried. I stepped behind Louis to look upward into the stairwell with the absence of light in my mind. I thrust the thought like a beam and the flame-lit torches sputtered to blackness. I turned and saw question and unease in his eyes as I moved past him to stand under what initially looked like impossibly smooth stone in a low ceiling above me.

“During the renovations, I had a door put…” My words were grunted and broken as I struggled with the awkwardly positioned bolt until it gave way with a shrill protest. I ripped away a tangle of roots and looked at Louis. “Come. I want to show you something.”

 

NEXT - The Revelation of the Bones - Part Three


	16. The Revelation of the Bones - Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conclusion of the revelation.

****

(Lestat)

In the short time since I’d returned from my little foray into the village, the snow had fallen enough to coat the generous expanse of grass behind the estate. A great gust of wind blew just as I stepped up to hold the heavy door. Louis ducked and passed beneath my arm, grimacing as the wind caught him full in the face and in a split-second celluloid frame of time I saw the ice crystals affixed to his long dark lashes. I stared, transfixed by this beauty of it until another gust threatened to knock me most ungracefully to the ground. I eased the impossibly heavy door into place and joined him on the snow covered terrace.

“Did you order the snow expressly?” he asked as he turned to watch it fall in the halo of the security light on the side of the carriage house. “It’s a nice effect. Cold, but beautiful.”

“It’s perfect really. All those years ago, the snow was much heavier but perhaps that too was perfect.” I slowed my thoughts and tuned them to the past. “Many nights after initially investigating the horrors of the dungeon I made a decision. Louis listened attentively despite the swirling wind. I began to walk backward down the South slope of the lawn toward the hedge line. He followed with a questioning furrow of his brows. “At the time, there were large trees on either side of the property, and with wood I gathered, I constructed a litter. A sledge of sorts, which I assumed would move easily over the snow.”

I stopped about fifty feet from vague, undulating shape of the hedge and took a moment to look upon the snow covered ruins. Louis followed my gaze and turned to fully appreciate the timeless beauty that a blanket of fresh snow provides. But like all beautiful things, they could be treacherous.

“I needed something to bind the wood, and there was enough to be had if I was willing to go through with my plans. I went back into the room where all those young men lay atop one another. It was surreal, for it was equal parts revulsion and amazement I felt as I looked upon them. No, amazement is not the right word. Even more surreal, it was gratitude and I think some awkward humility though I wouldn’t have recognized it as such then.”

He nodded his understanding and I continued, “The bodies on the top of the pile, the newest victims were not so horrible to handle. I removed their clothing lovingly, getting caught up in the gleam of gold buttons and pearl applique before I shredded them to ribbons. I wove them at the head and foot of the litter and bound larger pieces tightly around each corner. Before I went back inside, I came here and put my new abilities to use.” I pointed toward an uneven mound of earth tucked into a corner. The snow had not entirely covered the small rise and the grass there seemed a testament of will. “I knelt, and dug away the snow and into the frozen ground, feeling no small thrill at how the stubborn earth yielded to my strength. It became cathartic as I dug deeper and deeper. In no time I had a sizeable grave and climbed out of it – I remember I sat on the mound of dirt and surveyed my efforts. I experienced a short fit of laughter for the irony. There I was, a vampire, the “undead” of legend, crawling out of a grave to bury mortal remains. As you can imagine, that very thought sobered me once more.”

Again I paused. Thankfully, I hadn’t seen that look of ghastly concentration on his face in a very long time. “I went back for them, and brought them up one by one at least initially to my crudely constructed carrier to then trudge with it through the snow and put them in the ground.”

“Initially?” Louis appeared dazed, feeling the word instead of simply hearing it. “Initially,” he repeated with greater conviction then he drew in his breath and fixed his eyes upon me as the realization of that word choice became clear. “Ah, Lestat,” he tried to say more, but imagining it prevented any further expression. In some way I hoped he was really seeing it as I had that night.

“By the time I’d removed the first dozen bodies, the clothing and flesh had disintegrated into viscous putridity and though I tried to be respectful and keep them intact, I came away with a twisted arm or leg, bones and more bones I collected large and small, and in the end,”

“Enough, please,” he held up one hand, yet I continued.

“In the end, I retrieved a shovel from the fireplace near where I slept in that magnificent coffin, and did my best to remove every vile remnant from the floor. It took me hours in total, but I had no room to object. They died for me, Louis. They died because they _weren’t_ me. The least I could do was free them from their final imprisonment and hope that they would in some better kingdom, find the justice of walking happily again in the sunshine when I, the chosen one, never would.”

I looked down. The revelation of the bones and the burial of those who had looked so like me was the greater end of anything worth sharing about my transition to immortality in this place. Louis said nothing and when I looked up he was searching the past, his eyes far off. He looked quite stricken and a worry arose that this had been too much for him. When I took his hand in mine, he didn’t look at me and remained silent. “Let’s go inside and warm ourselves by the fire my love. The sun will rise soon.”

He looked over my shoulder to the treetops and then placed his lips on my cheek where he held them for a long minute to confirm that I still solidly existed. I caressed his damp hair and held him there in the moaning wind before heading us back inside. I was chilled through and through and he looked positively exhausted.

Once inside and back in the modernized bedroom, I turned on the gas fireplace, again quite happy that I’d had them include such an amenity. When Louis sat on the edge of the bed I crouched in front of him. “Get out of those wet clothes. Take a hot bath. I’m going to go secure things. You okay?” I rubbed his thigh and sighed. It had been a long night for both of us.

He nodded and as I stood he trailed his arm down mine until our fingers met. “All this is remarkable,” he said tiredly. “ _> You_ are remarkable. I have always known this, yet you are still able to leave me astonished.”

I shook my head. “Not remarkable, really. I simply did the best I could when I felt I had no other choices. I survived and along the way managed to stumble into vampire infamy.” I smiled, and with an unassuming shrug, disappeared into the hall.

****

**********

One by one the torches sputtered and died with only the slightest mental directive as I ascended the stairs to the tower. I might have left them to burn out on their own, but particularly for the weather on this nigh,t I wanted to have a moment of private observation in the space where I was as they say, born into darkness. Certainly it was dark, I laughed wryly as I entered the cold circle and put out the singular torch with my mind. I hadn’t known how to do that back then, had I? There was so much I hadn’t known and so much I’d learned since that night. A gust of wind blew through the barred window reminding me what I’d come to see as I’d seen it so long ago; the shimmering snow-covered landscape below presented as a gift for a newborn vampire’s eyes. It was this very window where I had stood with the barest understanding of how my life had changed. Did fledgling Lestat for a minute understand that everything within his sight would be his forever and yet for all that capacity to claim and possess in the new world, he would in some ways remain fallible to a mortal degree?

I felt a smile play over my lips at the thought. The answer is that no, those thoughts never crossed his mind, and that’s why he became all that he is tonight. At that I really had to laugh out loud at myself. The lights of Paris swelled and dimmed in the swirling snow and I sobered as I thought of myself there in the nights before Magnus had come for me. I’d been almost penniless and hungry, but I’d been truly happy for the first time in my life. The theatre had embraced me and I had not only embraced it in return but consumed it until it was a part of my very blood and breath, so that with each performance I might infuse my fellow performers and the audience with the essence I had stolen.

I turned to look at the faded charred place on the stone and again felt that curious detachment where I was someone else outside this body, curiously watching a man in a room. If being here had caused anger, hatred or even sorrow to arise as emotions it would have been justified, but in thinking of my maker, there was nothing much left at all. There was only the memory of the night in this room; the snow on the land, the fiery new hunger in my throat, and the way my fear and horror for my wretched abductor had dissolved and turned so readily to love as I died and came to life once more. 

Mortals never know what it is like at the moment of death or birth, any and all metaphysical experiences aside. For better or worse, vampires know both sides of that coin. Not so far from where I now stood I had turned the one I had once loved more than any other. I closed my eyes and tried to wait out the memory, but like the burn upon the stone it was seared into the deepest crevices of my mind. That night, his last in mortal flesh…the recollection of his hatred, envy and love pungently exuded in glistening and irresistable invitation upon his taut muscles. It was a meditation I’d indulged in many times over the years. I steadied myself against the wall and tried unsuccessfully to avert my thoughts. It was no use for I would always hold the vision I’d had then: The bird as it soared over the barren land, how I saw it and saw through its eyes as his blood filled my mouth. _You should have killed him there and then_ , I thought as I opened my eyes. If I’d spoken it out loud, it wouldn’t have been the first time. I shuddered and stood with new determination, shaking my head to clear it of such melancholy debris.

It was one thing to say that I’d put all that had come to pass in this place neatly into a scrapbook and locked it away, but it was another to understand that too much had transpired here to ever think I could ever fully lay it to rest. It was true enough to say that here, I’d been started upon what I notoriously termed The Devil’s Road, and it was also true to say that here, I’d lost my lover and best friend, and in some deeplycrucial way, lost my mother as well. When I had been faced with the choice of restoring or demolishing the tower, I realized that while nothing happy had occurred within these walls, the fact that it remained in spite of the tragedy was in fact a metaphor for my very existence. Thinking of that now, I had to laugh as I recalled the conversation with conservators. Of course they hadn’t known the depth of meaning as I’d mentioned ‘familial importance’. For all their nodding, they never in a million years could have understood.

And now, Louis knew one more aspect of his own maker and as I headed back down the stairs, I hoped he would feel that the wall around this particular venue from my past had been removed. For all of our recent tension and the mistrust I’d instilled, he deserved that much.

I entered the bedroom prepared for at least a bit of conversation toward that same subject, but he was already beneath the blankets, turned away from the doorway. Sometimes if he knew I was watching, he’d announce that he wasn’t asleep though of course I would know without his affirmation. I believed the real reason for such unnecessary statements was to bring me to him when I became entranced by him. It happened for each of us still, despite all the hurt we’ve flung at one another. 

Once upon a time in the days when I would give press conferences and such, I was asked if I wanted to get back with my _boyfriend_ Louis, and did I think he’d take me back. I remember my amusement at her terminology, but then with the thought that he might be somewhere tuning in to see just what The Vampire Lestat had to say, I leaned close to the microphone and spoke into it as if it were the softness of Louis’ neck against my lips. “I hope he forgives the madness and remembers the magic.”

To this very night, I never knew whether he’d heard that statement but nonetheless we’d made it back to one another then and now and that is what really mattered. “I figured I’d find you sitting by the fire,” I said as I undressed. He didn’t reply which led me to believe he was just on the edge of sleep where it is no longer possible to speak. Very well, I thought. It had certainly been an emotional evening and lying beside him as he slept was much more appealing than redundant discussion of my past.

NEXT: Restoration


	17. Restoration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis reacts to Lestat's revelations and takes the comfort Lestat offers even as he reveals some truths of his own.

****

(Louis)

Lestat shut the heavy door and I listened to his steps recede down the ancient stairs. With each step, I resisted the urge to call out to him to come back. After a minute or so passed, I decided that I should do as he bade me; getting out of my wet garments seemed the sensible thing to do, so I rose and began undressing. A hot bath would be just the thing, I thought distractedly, and he would come back soon, wouldn’t he? I made no move toward the bathroom, instead circling about the room, vaguely aware that my actions were becoming increasingly random. What on earth was that noise? Something climbing up the stone wall outside? Surely not. I listened again, and realized that I was leaning forward, awkwardly hunched against the cold. The sound was my teeth. My teeth were chattering, for the love of god. How strange. It should be funny, really, but it wasn’t a laugh that came from my mouth, but a strangled sort of gasping moan and I dropped to my knees, back still bent painfully forward. Oh, how could he bear it here?

I made myself straighten up and staggered to the bed, neatly turned down in invitation. I crept in beneath the thick down comforter that Lestat had taken from an oak armoire earlier to fortify the light blanket that had been on the bed. I was still shivering but at least my teeth had stopped that rapid clicking. This place...I had wanted to see it, yes, wanted to know where he’d been made, my beloved one and he brought me here because he _knew_ I wanted that.

He’d been careful in his book; as wrenching as it had sounded it was a muted thing, painted with the prism of time softening the edges in comparison to what he’d revealed this night. My heart ached for him, to have been snatched from his life, only just beginning, finding a place that he loved and where people loved him; taken from that and tossed into a nightmare world that he could never have known existed. _“Be careful what you wish for, Louis.”_ How often had he said that to me, sometimes in anger, voice dripping with scorn, sometimes with distant wistfulness. I’d thought his withholding had been a lack of trust, but why would he give his trust easily after all of this? Why would he have given it at all? I swallowed a ragged groan and pulled the blanket more tightly about my shoulders.

And what about you, I asked myself. Who withholds now? I closed my eyes, wracked again with shivers. That painting. Armand, painted with black wings, his face perfectly captured with the tints and sheen of human mortality even though by then he’d already put his feet on a different road. Of course Marius had seen him as that boy, broken and damaged and utterly irresistible, yet perhaps on his way to some image of normalcy until he’d been magicked by the Blood, their forced separation; the centuries among the so called Children of Darkness twisting him into the formidable and fearsome creature he had become. This combination of sorrow for Lestat, gratitude for the gift of his past, given with complete truthfulness and the specter of Armand suddenly in our midst as surely as if he had greeted us upon our arrival had completely thrown me. I became seized with a low anxiety and all I could think was that instead of taking another step toward the affirmation of all that we were to one another, I was instead dragging us backward.

When he re-entered the room, Lestat spoke gently to me, believing at first that I was on the verge of sleep. I turned to him when he got under the bedclothes beside me, looking mutely into his eyes and raising my hand to smooth his hair back from his face. He noted my distressed agitation, the slight trembling of my raised hand. “What is it, Louis?” he asked.

I didn’t answer; I didn’t need to, for Lestat had already allowed instinct to take over. Blood calls to Blood, he often said. He felt the pull of that call and inerringly interpreted what lay behind it. He settled back and turned his head to one side in invitation. I wanted a slow, long drink, wanted our minds to touch, to enmesh. The great artery pierced, the font kept open by slow, rhythmic entry of one sharp fang, moving in time with the pull and release of my lips against his neck. He fed me. He fed me and the mystery of what we are opened like a flower, opened like the tiny wound was opened. Humming, purring warmth: his mind opened to mine and the unsettled agitation faded away, replaced with his presence. Passion rose; there is always passion and that in itself was a comfort. Physicality is very much a part of who we are, how we have always been drawn together; there is no part of his flesh I have not caressed, kissed, touched with reverential awe - and as I drank, we wound around each other like vines. He gave and gave and we floated together, minds entwined as our bodies were.

This was different from the soaring and urgent climb of sexual passion; no shattering storm, but instead, the languid intimacy of blood and comfort given freely. We moved together, dreamlike, giving and taking in imagery more than words. I saw then that the memories Lestat had related earlier had long since been dealt with, a faded scar barely registered. For my part, I withheld nothing from him and there was, as always, a low ecstasy to be felt from his movement through the rooms in my mind. He entered rooms he'd avoided before, and there saw the paintings of memory on the my mental walls. From him came burstss of strong emotion--anger and sorrow and possessiveness flaring and then quickly throttled back as asserted his self-control. He examined and he interpreted what he could see in the spaces of my mind, absorbing whatever it made him feel in favor of seeing to me and soothing me--blood and love and I was swooning with both, I realized, reluctantly withdrawing from his throat, barely able to move. He drew me close, kissing my eyelids.

"Sleep, Louis mine,” he murmured. “The night is nearly gone.”

NEXT: (Sweet) Dreams Are Made of This


	18. (Sweet) Dreams Are Made of This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreaming in the Blood.

(Lestat)

The look in his eyes was enough to suppress any further questions. It was not often that he was rendered speechless and needful but as he came against me, I understood that it was not simply a tide of emotion that surged within him, but a turbulent sea in which there was but one safe harbor.

Regardless of the reason behind it, the moment of penetration is ecstatic, fangs into flesh, scintillating, soaring pain immediately overtaken by euphoria. It is the deepest love a heart can hold and the best sex you’ve ever had combined into one, and then some. I gasped with pleasure and wrapped my arms around him as he secured his mouth upon me. The feel of him, his hair and flesh against me was blissful and surely erotic, but then there was that turbulent ocean once more. In drinking, Louis sought to escape the waters of his emotions and for that I had to descend into the blackness to carry him forth.

As he drew from me, he gave in return a liquid illustration of the pain and longing I’d seen in his eyes. Our minds became one as I was pulled into darkness: falling, so slowly falling, and that sound, what was that surging hiss that called like the sweetest siren? Ah, his heart, his blood, my blood, falling, floating, falling… and slowly came the light of broken images. With each pulse, projections enveloped me and his vision became my own. There was the grand splendor of Florence, the beautiful Duomo and Louis walking along the darkened streets. This was not a recollection of time spent with me in Italy, recent or otherwise. I heard another voice come from somewhere in the shadows… but the pulse… drink, Louis…deliver me, deliver yourself…

He paused long enough to move against me, to move onto me fully and encircle my head in his strong, elegant arms. I reached beneath his back and gripped his shoulders to pull him against me though he needed no persuasion to resume. When again he sought and claimed the blood, I moaned and drew my legs around him as once more I was drawn down so sweetly. That voice again, talking to Louis as I saw through his eyes. It held the duality of a child’s innocence and a young man’s passion and if those two facets weren’t enough to enthrall a listener, they might have been rendered senseless simply by looking at the source. What was he saying to Louis? Something about Nicolas and I felt a fury rise within my heart. No, I said… don’t speak his name. Then, his voice curled into a childlike laugh, as through Louis’ mind, Armand’s delicate fingers played upon my skin. Stop, please, Louis… bring us back to the surface.

Just as quickly, the rage and loathing fascination was gone. There was only my love, suckling gently against the damp curve of my neck. I held him, relaxed and focused only on the sound and sensations of the present moment. He laced his fingers with mine and we turned until I lay deliciously pressed atop the length of his body. I lifted up and looked down into his face. He was flushed with the take and I had to close my eyes, not to fend off a bout of weeping, but to imprint for all eternity the way he looked in that instant. He pulled me down and pierced my neck once more. He wound his fingers into my hair as it fell alongside his face to veil the sacrament and I was again adrift. As Louis found his comfort the current of memories grew smoother. Images came to me abstractly as living canvases: old memories of him and Armand in the Netherlands, Germany and the two of them passing back through France before the drastic change to the grime and noise of New York. Fortunately, I was depleted enough that such details were dreamlike and painless. When he’d taken his fill, we settled together into the inescapable sleep where other dreams awaited.

NEXT: Who Am I To Disagree?


	19. Who Am I To Disagree?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreaming in the Blood

****

(Lestat)

Here in this place, the nights passed as they might in any other place we’d lived. With no grand adventure occupying our time there were hours for reading, playing any number of musical instruments for one another, drawn out discussions and of course, physical pleasures. In fact, as I sat in the armchair by the fireplace, I could hear evidence of such sport in the rooms above me. A crash, a sweetly agonized groan, and darkly intimate laughter.

“You enjoy such suffering, don’t you?”

The lilting voice that produced that seemingly innocent question came from across the room, and I raised my eyes in the direction of the piano. There, in a beautiful rose colored dress, sat Claudia, her eyes turned toward the ceiling. She shook her head slightly and those ever-perfect curls rose and fell on her shoulders. Finally, she stared at me to silently affirm her inquiry. Would her blue eyes ever be free of accusation? I said nothing and looked away from her toward the endless black beyond the window. There was no masochistic enjoyment of anything for me on this night or any other; it was simply my life at this juncture.

Shortly, I heard the fall of their footsteps descending the stairs and looked up to see Louis, dressed in shirt I hadn’t seen before. It was a bewitching jewel tone, somewhere between teal and emerald and quite obviously, custom made. It molded his body perfectly, and when our eyes met I couldn’t help to wonder if even for a split second he thought of all the times we’d dressed to perfection after our passions were spent and headed out into the night to recoup our strength with a drink or two. He ran a hand back to further smooth his mussed hair as he cleared his throat and stepped into the foyer. Behind him, dressed no less superbly, came Armand. Despite my expectations, his expression carried no snide amusement and I can admit that in some way I was disappointed that neither of them acknowledged the turbulent emotions I felt. Louis knew my heart and as I looked at him, my mind was unguarded against intrusion. Surely they knew my pain, but I told myself there was no point in such recognition. What were we going to do? Go around and around once more about how all things have their time? Would I once more endure Armand’s suggestion that I could stop being selfish and simply make it a threesome? Yeah, as if. No, this was the way of things now. I looked at Claudia knowing that of anyone, she would surely offer me a scornful look, with her precious pouting mouth poised on the edge of either laughter or a pointedly dismissive remark. The piano bench was empty, and what’s more I could not feel her presence in the house or anywhere beyond. Suddenly, there came a deep and vacuous rift, a stillness in the air and I looked once more to Louis, but the front door was open and he and Armand had gone to revel in the blood. I closed my eyes and only for an instant, touched Armand’s mind as they drove off toward the city. I felt only a trace of thought for me there, and worse, felt the idolization as he laid his hand on Louis’ thigh. Before I could see Louis’ expression, I blinked to look at the ceiling once more where only the blank, moodless eye of the plaster medallion stared down at me.

The coverlet had fallen over my face and I pawed at it in confusion as I sat up on one arm and looked around the room at the stone walls. The barest hiss of the gas fire brought me fully out of the dream and I fell back onto the pillow with relief to breathe in the lingering scent of my blood and the reassuring perfume of our sweat that marked us as one.

NEXT: The Unsettled Heart


	20. The Unsettled Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis hunts in Paris and comes to a decision after a visit to another place from Lestat's past.

(Louis)

Although I could not immediately see it with the window shuttered and swathed as it was, I knew I had awakened the moment the sun had disappeared from the rim of the earth in the part of the world I presently occupied. I am one who often slips from the captivity of death sleep into the welcome arms of Morpheus, there to dream and restore, especially after having been given such a feast from my beloved. This night, in this place, however, it was not to be. The respite received and the comfort Lestat had afforded me had drained quickly, taken from me as I slept and again, I found my heart unsettled and my body restless. Some of the restlessness was energy created, as it always is, by the influx of Lestat’s powerful, luscious essence, but there was also the enervation that had overtaken me when I’d been confronted with Lestat’s revelations and the sight of the places where these things occurred.

I moved so that I could look at him and he shifted his body with an interrogative little sound; a kiss for my sleeping beauty, then. His eyelids fluttered at the brush of my lips and he smiled before settling back into a restorative sleep. There was no quiet for me, however, and I rose with the half-formed idea that I would hunt, for in spite of the full measure Lestat had bequeathed to me, the thirst had arisen with startling ferocity.

The room held a deep, stony chill that the gas fire could not conquer so I dressed quickly and then took a moment to search the cedar-lined armoire across from the bed. Within, there were several pillows and a thick quilt with not a trace of mustiness in spite of the noticeable dampness of the tower. I laid it over Lestat to keep the chill from permeating the bed. Being somewhat depleted, his body was cool to the touch, something I planned to remedy upon my return. A last lingering look and I let myself out of the room, closing the heavy door behind me.

Coming up the worn stone steps early this morning, I had not realized how tall the tower was. Had I even looked through the deeply recessed window before Lestat had secured it? Doubtful. I remembered only that I wanted to lie down and have him beside me. I had been entirely unprepared for my reaction to his frank and detailed revelations, no doubt exacerbated by the looming and oppressive feel of great weight, figurative and literal, above and around us.

There are reverberations both loud and soft held within the dwellings of humans. The older the dwelling, the longer it has had to absorb such things. Not every structure holds traces of inhabitants with something to say; perhaps some prefer to remain unheard. Whatever it might be, for me this comes across most often on an emotional level--I don’t see spirits as a rule, nor do they speak to me as such. Instead, I will occasionally feel these echoes...sometimes grieving, sometimes playful or strangely exuberant. Often there is malevolence, fragmented in some places, but in others it can be shockingly intense and though I don’t think I have ever been in actual danger from such thing, I never actively seek out these echoes.

The reverberations here were strong and insistent I thought, reaching the bottom of the tower. Shoving at the door to push it open, I was greeted with a blast of frigid air and the incomparable beauty of a freezing fog, coating every surface with glittering ice crystals. There were lights on in the manor house and the yellow glow took on a luminescence that was both magnified and softened by the fog and the minute particles of ice glittered like ground glass as they floated through the light emanating from the house. In spite of the discomfort from the cold, I could not help but to stand still for several minutes, captivated as I was by the glister and shine of the individual crystal formations; indeed, I had to shake myself free of the urge to look ever more closely at everything around me.

Making my way to the back of the house, I wondered how far beneath the ground the dungeons ran. Had the tower once been the keep of a long-eroded castle? It made sense, but if so, I could not make out the outer foundations from where I stood. There was only the medieval tower, standing on its own and the chateau, a late seventeenth century structure some small distance away that had been restored and added to over the centuries.

Echoes, I thought again. I’d heard and felt those quite clearly last night--I could sense it now, lamentation that shook the bones of the earth beneath my feet. How long had Magnus been at his search? How many young men hunted and taken, found wanting and then consigned to their doom until he came upon Lestat?

The images his recitation had conjured were dreadful, yet they pointed out something I have always known. Lestat is an extraordinary and complicated person. I suspect Magnus knew it. The coven at large knows it, though much is made of his fiery temperament, his impetuous nature. It’s an easy thing to lose sight of his complexity when one only looks at his impulsiveness without reading into how and why he reacts as he does. I’ve done it often enough myself and I would count myself as one who knows him better than anyone else.

Only look at what he revealed to me: giving those young men a decent burial and understanding his kinship with them. He did not choose to reveal it to the wider world, but kept it to himself. He cannot know how such a revelation affects me, fills me with sorrow for what he endured, pride for his goodness. Oh yes, there is much goodness in him though he has a hard time seeing it for himself. 

Lestat is no saint, not by a long chalk. He often ties me in knots, makes me blind with fury, weak with laughter, dizzy with passion; he has made me absolutely crazed with exasperation on many occasions. That he can do all these things makes me love him all the more. That he is able to surprise in so many ways with his quick mind and his generosity and yes, his impulsivity are things that fill me with gratitude; that he is my maker fills me with deep satisfaction and quiet, enduring joy.

Feeling the crystals begin to form on the exposed skin of my face broke through this silent reverie. Lestat often says the fascination never really leaves us and I have come to realize that it’s utterly true.  
I let myself into the kitchen, closing my eyes at the welcome warmth. The car keys were on the heavy wood table. Pocketing them, I took a deep breath, willing myself forward through the vast dining room to the front foyer leading to the great salon. I knew the story: I’d read Lestat’s book many times, yet my mind had not completely felt the reality of the words with the force brought on by this visit. Part of that story told of Lestat’s first meeting with Armand and the upheaval of Armand’s ragged Children of Darkness, a tale I knew nothing about in my early years with Lestat. This grand house was where Armand dwelt up until the time Claudia and I crossed paths with him. The uplifting reverie of only a moment earlier was now becoming subsumed with the earlier anxiety I’d felt upon awakening.

I stepped into the salon and looked up at the amazing painting...Marius’ work, the angel with black wings. It was wrenching to look upon and this surprised me for I had seen Armand quite a few times in the century just past and in this new one. Why should this painting pull forth emotions I’d thought I’d left far behind? I flipped the electric switch on the wall and the room was bathed in soft, yet brilliant light, exactly perfect for optimum illumination and enhancement of the painting and its colors.

Armand is very often referred to as a cherub, but this is a misnomer when one considers the _putti_ with their tiny wings and their vapid and somehow greedy expressions as they are shown in Renaissance paintings and architecture. Armand is smaller than many of us but he is no round baby; his limbs are finely formed with a palpable sturdiness rather than anything approaching delicate fragility or childishness.

Examining the painting closely, I thought that perhaps Armand never looked as beautiful as he appears in this masterful piece, this work done by his maker. To one side of the angel was a casement through which could be seen a garden, fantastic with classical statuary, brilliant with flowers and plants of every description. The clouds in the sky beyond were tinged pink and apricot and lavender that bled into a deep violet embracing a quartered moon. It was the figure of the angel that commanded the eye, however. The detail was astonishing, each feather showed exquisite definition--filoplumes, contour feathers and the fine down where the wings joined the body; the minute barbicel hooks that cross-attached to keep the feathers smooth. It was altogether astonishing and possibly so detailed that only our enhanced vision could actually pick up on the depth. If such detail was fascinating, the awe lay in the face of the angel--Armand’s--unique beauty and allure. There was subtle mortal color and mobility to be seen in his features and the humid dewiness of his skin was warmly apparent. Had it been painted from life or from Marius’s memory of the mortal Armand had been? The concupiscence mixed with worshipful love evident in his glance was less than angelic, yet it is there was a singular softness of expression that I suspect has not been seen in him since that time.

Seeing the painting felt like a forced confrontation on that first night. I don’t mean that I believe Lestat had anything of the sort in mind when he brought me here. I had no idea when he may have last visited this place, but his immediate reaction to the painting when we’d entered the room the evening we’d arrived indicated only his animosity for the subject. When I beheld the painting I’d barely any time for much more than a surface reaction and Lestat’s revelations last night had driven it from my mind for the most part, but I had identified the unsettled feeling at last.

An hour and a half later found me in Paris. I was seated at the edge of a low concrete wall, listening to the music of running water from the fountain before me and trying to orient myself enough to drive back to where Lestat waited for me. I was still mightily gripped by the swoon, brought on by what, for me, had been a massive feed. Some details remained; interceding on the behalf of a young lady being menaced by a pair of men as she attempted to gain entrance to the foyer of the apartment building she lived in. She’d put up an angry front but they paid her no mind until I stepped in. She thanked me and hastily went inside while the two men hurled insults at me and began a shoving match which I allowed for some minutes. With an appearance of fear, I left and they, of course, followed. I’d left the bodies in the rubble of a recently demolished building. A burst of speed and I was many blocks away, closer to the river and in a place I had never been before.

I'd found my way to Les Halles, and the fountain before me was a monument dedicated to those millions who had once lain beneath in the _cimetière des Innocents_. A coincidence one could say. Perhaps not, though, after all that had happened in the few days since our arrival in France. The bones of those who had once filled this space to actual bursting were now a Paris tourist attraction, having been moved from here to un unused subterranean quarry in Montparnasse. All that had occurred only a few years after Lestat had stood in the marketplace only a little distance from here, dictating a letter to his mother because he himself could not write.

Lestat had described the cemetery clearly in his first book, the place where Armand and his benighted coven had dwelt. On one of few discussions regarding Claudia’s destruction that we have had in more recent years, he’d said a thing that came back to me now.

_“Do you remember the murals, Louis? Bruegel's ‘Triumph of Death’ and the like? On the wall to be seen as one descended the long staircase to where the coven congregated was another mural - a danse macabre. Armand had it removed from the charnier that had been at the edge of Les Innocents and reconstructed it beneath the theatre. He may have done it all himself, for all I know. It was when I saw the mural that I realized just how much resentment for me burned within him--he could not leave that behind, could not let go of the centuries of horror he’d both endured and inflicted. Mon Dieu! It was then that I knew just what a mistake I’d made in seeking him out.”_

This memory had the effect of forcibly rousing me from the drifting swoon and driving home the realization I’d had upon leaving the manor house earlier. Most secrets don’t do anyone any good. There are times where I find myself agreeing with Lestat regarding the barrier between our thoughts, but why? Why do I agree? Is it so I can hold my own secrets fast? We have discussed my time with Armand only peripherally at best and it would be dishonest of me to say that I did not prefer it so. Perhaps for a long time it was because I was unwilling to face yet another wedge that might have come between us at any one of our precarious reunions. Now, when we had worked so tenaciously toward getting a firm grip in how we might manage a relationship with some semblance of success, it was a secret I needed to pull into the light. Privacy was one thing...a secret verging on lies of omission was quite another.

I made my way to where I’d parked the Peugeot and driving back to the manor house, another memory surfaced; a discussion between Armand and myself on a long ago snowy night in Vienna. We’d been to a musical evening, a performance of Debussy’s _5 Poèmes de Baudelaire_ at the home of a young lady that Armand had made acquaintance with. It had been an enjoyable evening; the young lady had been in fine voice and though I was not much enamored of Debussy’s music, I enjoyed Baudelaire’s poetry put to music well enough.

I remember thinking at the time that it had been a success for me because Armand had been much enthralled by the young woman’s singing and as such had left me with my mental privacy, not just that evening but for several weeks afterward. His conversation had been animated and genuine, without the layers he sometimes inserted in order to prod memory from me.

At such times I was far more amiable to physical closeness, feeling that it was not in any way manipulated. His patience and dedication to bringing me out of several decades of despair had been real enough and occasionally I could allow myself to acknowledge that I'd felt a genuine affection for him, something that verged on love.

That evening when returned to our rented flat, we lay side by side on the bed--there was no move from him to initiate any intimacies beyond the closeness of two bodies and the continuing animated conversation. With the coming of dawn, I was always the first to be seized with the heavy lethargy that preceded the drowning sensation of the death sleep. This night it was as though he’d waited for that moment, and he’d leaned over me, looking into my eyes. “Such a gift you are Louis," he purred. "Lestat truly surpassed himself when he brought you to the Blood.” His smile held a glint of malice and I truly felt I was imprisoned--it was a dagger to the heart, a clean, exquisitely painful thing that he had sent with me to oblivion. After that, there was little that could be called intimacy between us. Physicality...perversity, yes, but never again was there intimacy. Driving through through light snow that had again begun to fall, I thought suddenly that perhaps there never had been, perhaps it had always been nothing more than illusion he'd woven.

NEXT: Blackness and Green


	21. Blackness and Green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continued meditations on the past.

(Lestat)

Lying there, I realized that not only was he not in the room, but that Louis was not nearby. When I looked at the bedside clock I was surprised by how late it was and despite that fact, I was still fatigued. I could remain in bed and doze until he returned, but I did not want to invite any more dreams of the sort I’d just experienced. It was not unusual for me to dream of Claudia; She came in various guises, sometimes even as a grown and very desirable woman. Once, such a dream of her had led to my rhapsodizing on the subject, with countless what-ifs until poor Louis threw his hands up into the air and removed himself from my presence for a night or two until the spark of interest in the possibility of her existence burned itself out.

Poor Louis, indeed.

He dreamed of her on occasion and once in awhile I’d catch him looking at a young girl in such a way that I knew he was seeing Claudia. In such an instant, his yearning for her was palpable, but I would hold my tongue to avoid adding insult to injury as it were. She was gone. We had long since accepted that fact as well as the fact that she never should have been brought into this life at all. Over time we even got past casting blame upon one another and yet as I noted several thin cracks in the plaster above my head, I knew that like it or not vampires retain such things as blame and guilt as tinder for the love-hate relationships that bind us all. Look at Louis and I for instance. How many times had we spurned one another only to reunite and declare our love. Hell, even now we were in a period of renewed happiness, but I could not help to think how long would it be before once again we drifted apart?

I sat up, sobered and scowling at the thought. I rose to dress, and played over the inevitability in my mind, not just between myself and all those I’d brought into this life. How long had it been since I’d seen or spoken to Gabrielle, for instance? I tell myself that I would know if she had been dispatched, but would I really know or is that simply fueling the romantic lore of maker-fledgling? What if, as I’d feared so long ago in my own mortality, there really is nothing more than a quickly extinguished flame? Bah, no! I shook my head and sniffed aloud. They were all merely tending to their own lives just as Louis and I were doing. One night we’d all get together and say “Hey, where ya been man?” and have a good laugh over shared stories. That image brought a smile. I loved the thought of those I’d created in one room, though I could already hear them: “Oh, I know, don’t you hate it when he does that?”, “Once, we were talking about this and he said…can you believe it? Oh that’s Lestat alright.” There I would sit, watching my treasured children with a knowing smile.

I made my way to the main house and the silence coupled with softly glowing security lights brought to mind all the museums I’d ever accessed long after the public had gone. I paused to examine once again the framed Galle etching, touching the glass over the skull at the head of the chariot and pondered the latin at the bottom. I have no Latin, but I understood enough but I could make out something about Popes and Kings. Marius would know the translation, I thought, and as that thought came I turned around slowly to look up the staircase at the illuminated angel on canvas. Unbidden, the dream returned and I made a mental comparison between the painting and the one who had gone off into the night with Louis. While I could certainly imagine Marius as he stood, brush in hand with a pause here and there to envision the mortal who had infiltrated his heart as no other before, I could equally scoff at the romanticized and believe me, exceedingly ironic image of Armand as an angel, even one with symbolic black wings.

I stood there gazing at it for several moments, and with each passing second I felt my anger grow. Though it had been over two centuries since the first night I laid eyes on Armand, I could mentally traverse the span of time from then to now in seconds. How stricken I had been by the first impression, the velvet and richness alongside the dark ways of his coven. I was fascinated and yes, on some level I had wanted him as a companion in those early nights. I had to roll my eyes as I said aloud, “Imagine how things would have turned out had that happened.”

Those painted eyes looked down at me licentiously, _'Come now, Lestat,'_ they said, _'It wouldn’t have been so bad.'_ Then, as I was considering the flush of color on his painted flesh, I swear I heard a goading voice behind me add, _'Just ask Louis.'_ I spun around so hard I nearly toppled from the step, but where I expected to see the auburn-haired tyrant, there was no one and that only made me angrier. For all I knew he was holed up in some far off Palazzo, honing in on my thoughts and projecting his voice in such a way. It would be so very like him to add that to his bag of plentiful tricks. I glared at the front door as if to challenge him to walk through it, but of course he did not.

To think he had been the one I turned to in this very place to strengthen me when the wicked child I’d created left me for dead in a blazing townhouse and stolen away with her accomplice. I had come here to this place where this life was thrust upon me even as I kicked and screamed in defiance. I’d given it to him free and clear after everything he’d done. Had I forgiven him for everything from the tawdry insults of his coven to the unspeakable things he’d done to Claudia? And what of Nicolas? My eyes burned and rimmed red with the memory. Forgiveness is a very subjective word when you feel that everyone you’ve loved has abandoned you, and perhaps in the world of vampires it is a word that has no meaning at all. I had at least laid it aside, buried it for as long as it might have taken for him to grant me some consideration and favor along with the blood I so desperately needed. Oh but that would have been too easy, too accommodating, and far too fucking compassionate and so what did he do instead? Like everything, the recall was instant and real enough to cause me to stiffen as I remembered the shock and pain of his assault. I hadn’t had time to even prepare or get my feet under me before he’d hurled off the tower with astonishing force and velocity; the ensuing impact with the unyielding earth shattered most of my bones.

Had I been stronger both physically and mentally, I might have paused in midair and laughed at the look of surprise on his face. Yes, I’d have beaten him senseless but instead I lay there, quite literally broken and alone. What does one do when lying on the ground after they’ve inventoried such pain? I thought of home - and not this place where I had become this creature who was capable of surviving such a fall and such exquisite pain, but home in the lush comfort of New Orleans. Surely I had lapsed into unconsciousness as I lay there, and desperately my mind sought familiar comforts; I had heard the raucous laughter of Mardi Gras, and the low, deep blast of the riverboat horn even as I could smell the dank, oily wake it left behind. When at last I opened my eyes, I’d wept for home; I prayed for deliverance from my present nightmare to the soft luxury of my bed where I could hear the mockingbird that warbled off and on through the night. Damaged beyond what I even knew, I laid there on the ground with morning approaching and thought about that bird. Louis had jokingly named it Pierre, and at different times when he heard it he would tell me that Pierre was commenting on something I’d done and I would humor him by whistling a reply.

Fortunately, immortal instinct had not been broken and urged me to seek shelter no matter how painful it was to move my body even slightly. I dragged myself to the door and for a moment panicked at the thought that he would have barred my entry and left me to the coming sunlight. It took every bit of strength I could muster to open the door and pull myself inside. There I had remained for an indeterminate length of time as my bones knitted together well enough to allow me to stand. For months I subsided off of what I could catch or call to me, and in total I had spent over two years recovering. In that time there was no appearance by Armand, and with good reason. He was with Louis somewhere in Europe and I’d learned that fact when he’d opened his mind for me to reveal an intensely intimate scene between them, then closed the view with a wry mental smile, exclusively for my benefit. Whether it had actually occurred or was an antagonistic fabrication didn’t matter. They were together and I was alone, so near and yet so far from the ability to intervene and the worst truth was that even if I’d been able, I don’t know that I would have pursued the cause.

I sat down on the stairs and studied the room. Again I thought of the so-called Children of Darkness in their cold, fetid catacombs. This house for all the frills, didn’t seem much different to me and I wanted to be away from it. Louis had undoubtedly gone out to clear his head from all he’d seen last night. When he had taken in my blood, I saw muted scenes of the past, specifically of his time with Armand. For better or worse there were no passionate revelations, but neither was it all doom and gloom. Worst of all, the images that had come to me were so vague,more like bubbles of feeling than true pictures, that I had no aim for my anger. Yet as I sat there, I could feel it percolating. I wanted to rip the carefully framed art from the walls and smash it onto the tile for the next event planner to find. Or hell, this was the modern age; I could just take pictures and send them to Armand as if he’d care. Art was replaceable. This house was replaceable. Yet all those years ago, he’d manipulated and stolen the one thing that could never be replicated, hadn’t he?

My temples throbbed and I covered my face for a moment with both hands in a gesture of exasperation. I needed to calm down or Louis would receive the full measure of my undispersed wrath. If Armand was reading my thoughts he was probably laughing out loud at my discomfort. Screw him. One thing I knew above all else, was that if he was eliminated this very night, I would shed no tears, and this was one of many instances where the urge to bring about that fate was very tempting.

I rose and started up the stairs, deliberately averting my eyes from the painting. If I destroyed any art it would be that monstrosity. Maybe I should destroy the whole place after we left. Now that Louis had seen it, maybe that was just the thing to do.

I opened the door to the room and was overcome with a suffocating weariness when I reached the end of the upper hall. As I entered, I wondered how many mortal feet had stood here wondering about the artist behind the canvases that lined the walls. There were random imitations of the great impressionists and even something close to Picasso. I did not know the origins of most of these as they had been attained by someone on the restoration team. Aside from the room where Magnus bestowed his gifts to me, this room held the most significance for me. The antique chaise had been moved against the wall and I pulled it to the center of the room.

When I lay down, the anger and fatigue instantly began to dissipate and for that I was grateful. Above me, the sky seemed to open up in a great, swirled expanse that moved from a beautiful, blue daytime expanse with sunlit clouds into the deepest, star-filled night. This, it could be said, was done in a Van Gogh style with the brushstrokes so thick and deep in some places that the sky seemed to be melting. The hand that painted this had been unpracticed, unlike that of his Master. The irony that this lovely work by Armand relaxed me quite deeply was something I acknowledged silently as I studied the variations of black and blue in the tendrils that so delicately reached from night into day. “O, Great Creator of Being,” I said aloud. “Grant us one more hour to perform our art and perfect our lives.” I closed my eyes and focused on deep, slow breathing until I heard the door open downstairs.


	22. Turbulence Ahead and a Reading in the Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis returns and further resolution is met.

(Louis)

I found Lestat in a room I had not yet visited during this disorienting and fraught stay. The art displayed on the walls would normally have arrested my attention but it was Lestat, reclining on an exquisite divan in the center of the room with his eyes trained intently upon a ceiling painted with stars that I immediately focused on.

His form, his dear face, seemed somehow indistinct to my sight. This was no result of the swoon which still lingered from my earlier drink--it was something that I recognized from experience, an energy that swirled and snapped around him so strongly that it became a visible distortion. Among our kind, this signals a need for caution at the very least. It is a warning, a sign that the vampire radiating such energy is agitated, wrestling with any number of emotions. Anger, sorrow, hatred, passion, hunger--any or all might be the source. 

Considering where we were and what this place represented, I was willing to bet it was all of these things and perhaps more. I was not frightened, but I knew better than to approach him just yet. He turned his head and looked at me. His expression was coolly assessing but his eyes held a dangerous heat. I clasped my hands behind my back and gazed back at him calmly. "I expect we have a few things to unravel this night, _mon bien-aimé_."

(Lestat)

When Louis spoke in that knowing, measured pattern it was more than worthy of attention. It’s true enough that my beloved is easily the most beautiful among the men in our little coven, and for that and all the mythical guilt woven around him by various fictions, it’s easy to overlook the searing intelligence behind his captivating eyes. But I heard it in the meter of his voice, and for an instant, I thought of smiling. Perhaps that would have taken things in a whole other direction, but there was something more: The scent of simmering mortal blood within him. My nostrils flared and I yearned for it with vulgar immediacy. I wanted to wrap myself around him and slowly work downward from his ear with my lips before exquisitely piercing his flesh. I wanted to feel the energy of the blood filling me as nothing else could; as it had from that first night in this wretched place; I wanted to drink deeply, gluttonously, until he begged me to stop. Mm, I wanted…

“Yes,” I said as I turned my head toward where he stood. With that single word I replied to both his statement and the timeless taunt of the blood. I stared at him and he remained just inside the door as he gauged my mood. I offered nothing more and turned back toward looking at the stars. I was weakened from the quantity he’d taken last night, but no bloodletting could deplete me as quickly as the self-inflicted burden of the recurring wars I waged against the past. Lelio was alive and well if anyone ever doubted, though his most predominant roles were played out in the theater of my mind for ghostly applause.

Louis crossed the room with effortless fluidity, seeming to materialize at my side and into the turbulence of my emotions there came a small burst of pleasure at his unconscious grace. He leaned down, pushing the sleeve of his sweater up, his loose hair spilling forward. I could smell the wind in it even over the insistent scent of blood. He took my hand in that reverent way he has, his eyes shining but serious. Moving slightly, he grasped my fingers near the tips as though we were about to engage in a formal minuet. This impression was sharpened when he took several small steps, up and around where my head rested, all the time looking into my face. He knelt beside me, the movement like a genuflection. I loosely held his hand as he moved beside me and looked up toward the invitation of stars.

“The transition, day into night,” he said with some degree of reverence and affirmation. Had he known this was here all along? Ah but he was so near with the thudding seduction so close. I turned and without a word, sank my teeth into his wrist. He’d begun to add onto his sentence, but as I took the first pull it trailed off into a long, singular vowel.

Ah, the taste… my mouth filled with its intensity, heated, metallic and rich with the flavour of life. I pulled Louis closer, felt his other hand gripping my hair, but I was lost to a childhood memory, when we’d traveled to the home of a distant relative. Gamay grapes grew thick on the vines behind their estate in an undeniable invitation. At first, the flavor was sweet, cherry-like and intriguing; certainly enough so to prompt a selfish harvest. As I ate them however, that late-season, over-ripeness overtook the initial delight. The soft, nearly rotten fruit mocked my young palatte for so greedily enjoying their disguise. I had continued to eat them despite the soft, cloying rot upon my tongue. The sum of the experience existed for each facet, some more pleasant than others; I guess I knew that long before immortal senses would appreciate it with greater acuity, for better or worse.

I heard Louis choke out my name in a whisper as I drew heavily on the wound. He leaned forward over me and laid his head on my bare chest. I felt his lips brush my skin and in any other moment it might have led to an intensely physical interlude, but no… I drank… drank in the emotions that rose and receded within my beloved, sweet and compelling but swirled with the bitter heaviness of sorrowful guilt. My darling one…so beautiful he was, and I could willingly surrender and drown in this elixer of his soul.

He slid back so that his lips rested on my cheek, and reluctantly, I relaxed my hold upon his arm. He came around to my side once more and I looked up into his eyes. How many years had it been since the first night I’d seen him in the blood? There was inestimable difference between time marked on a calendar and that marked by the heart and mind. I smiled for the depth of expression upon his face as a testament to his unwavering love. It left me speechless when in fact as he’d surmised, there were things that needed to be said. I looked back toward the stars above and thought of Armand as he might have appeared, paintbrush and palette in hand as he endeavored to put in inexpressible into form; that which was mortality and the daylight as it shifted into the dark bliss of eternal night.

“Byron wrote, ‘Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge.’ For nearly two years, I lay in this very spot, wishing at times I could disappear upon the horizon like one of these stars.” I gestured with a short tilt of my head. “That one low on the left was the emblem of my desire as I hovered hovering between the alluring fantasy of death and the bittersweet reality that it would not come to pass so easily. I lay here while my bones knit together, subsisting off what I could call to me, be it mortal or animal. Healing made the pain worse only for the fact that my body was eager to reclaim the hollow victory of immortality, while my mind wanted nothing more than to surrender to emptiness rather than contemplate all I had lost.”

NEXT - Chapter 23: A Wintery, Storm Blown Sigh - La maison sur l'Île Saint-Louis


	23. A wintery, storm-blown sigh   -   La maison sur l'Île Saint-Louis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lestat and Louis clear the air of a buried past ; they quit the tower and make their way to Paris.
> 
> Sorry for the delay in posting...Happy New Year, everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clarification - beneath the chapter title, it says 'Chapter by Gairid'. I am not sure why this shows like that and I don't see how to remove it. To be clear, Leshan writes for Lestat and I, Gairid , write for Louis but there is also lot of cross over involved, especially when there is dialog. TL:DR- I think it says the chapter is by me because I'm the one who posted it.

**A Wintery, Storm Blown Sigh**

(Lestat)

Louis was still on his knees, looking into my eyes. “Two years.“ His voice was ragged and my ravenous hunger had taken a toll on him. He sank back on his heels with his head bowed. After a moment he maneuvered himself into a sitting position, leaning one shoulder on the divan for support. “Two years you suffered and I thought you dead, destroyed by my useless wrath. Decades more until I realized it could not have happened as I believed.” He turned his head to meet my eyes. “You, who survived my passive treachery. I should have known it was impossible, Lestat, that you were gone. You are so very strong. In the Blood, yes, but it isn’t just that. “ He gave a ghost of a smile. “It never was, my love.”

He thought me strong. Nicolas had held the same theory, and how many others likely voiced the sentiment as they read of my various exploits? Despite my vanity, I rarely have held agreeance with this idea. I’m physically strong of course, but emotionally well, my histrionics and despondence are well documented. I think like, many mortals, I simply endure. Whether that warrants the label of ‘strong’ is debatable, but to be certain there is something to be said for being too stubborn and greedy to let go of life. I turned my head to the side slightly, and smiled from the effect as Louis’ face came into focus. "I could have found a way to get to you. I can be nothing if not determined.” My voice had an intoxicated quality that could have led me to ill-timed laughter, so I paused and instead like many under the influence, brought forth an admission that may otherwise have remained unspoken. “The truth is, I was angry because I knew on some level you did love him. You needed him. In my weakness, I thought perhaps it was for the best and that maybe he could love you better than I had done to that point." The look he gave me might have been mistaken for sadness, but I’d seen it often enough to know the emotion behind the expression was a profound love for me, mixed with the innate guilt he wore so beautifully.

“I suppose I loved him,” Louis said in his careful, measured way. “Certainly I was infatuated at the beginning. Armand offered sanctuary of a sort and he offered answers when I believed I had nowhere else to look”. He drew in a shuddery breath that underscored his emotions as he recalled those years. “And then she was taken and destroyed and I knew nothing beyond rage and pain for years. I loved him for pulling me out of that. I loved him for his patience and I even loved him for his deceit because I realized at last that you were not gone. I don’t know that he ever loved me. He wanted me. Perhaps he equated possession with love. I had a hard time understanding him. I still do.”

He paused for a while and his expression was foreign to me at first until I realized he was hesitant to go on. I made no sign and shifted my gaze back to the image of the firmament above us. “Looking at it now, I think it was always you that he loved and much of what came to pass was his idea of retribution for taking all he had and then abandoning him. Lestat,” he rose while gauging my emotions. "Understand, I am not laying...”

“Blame?” I asked. “Of course not. And your summation is correct for the most part, Louis. I know Armand wanted me and when I first met him, I was rapt with fascination and I wanted him just as much.” The bitter note in my voice was evident. “Who wouldn’t want him? He is beyond comparison to any other vampire. Less than a year into this life and I knew that as soon as I set eyes on him. So young in the blood I was... “ I paused deliberately and turned away for a moment. “Two years in this place. I was damaged but you, ah, your pain was so brilliant… how could he resist?”

“I didn’t draw him to me,” he said without a trace of reproach.

“Not consciously.” I smiled at him. For what we are, having eternity, we lose some ability to perceive ourselves and with Louis it is certainly true that he is often completely unaware of the effect he has on others. “But make no mistake he was drawn to your pain, just as for centuries he has drawn to him those who wish to die. In your pain, Louis, in theirs, he finds the misery that he hasn’t been able to escape since the day he was born.” He fetched a sigh as he considered my words. I continued, only barely dampening the disdain I felt. “He has found no remedy in all these years, so why not focus on you?” You can't tell me you didn’t see how desperately he wants someone to fix him, how he wanted it from Marius, and me? He damn sure practiced it on Daniel. There’s no reason you’d be an exception to his games. You say he offered you sanctuary… comfort, perhaps, and that he promised answers.” At that I outright sneered. “Such pretty euphemisms for fucking and lies.” The pointedness of those words was emphasized by my stance, hands on my hips as I watched him.

He said nothing for a second or two as he leaned almost nonchalantly with one hand on the back of a ornately carved antique chair. He nodded slightly as if considering the weight of the expletive. "I saw it," he said. "It would have been difficult not to and the longer I stayed, the more it manifested, that broken part of him. I marveled sometimes that he ever thought I could do anything about it. So far as anything else,” He paused to exhale strongly through his nose in a sort of gentlemanly snort. "Those would be euphemisms for fucking and half-truths. Just to be clear."

Well, that wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. I shifted from one foot to the other and tightened my lips as I thought of how to respond. His expression was at once expectant and patient in a way only he can pull off, but he couldn’t fully suppress the formation of a wry smile that, as much as he might hate it, bordered on a smirk. I started to say something - my mouth opened and closed and for my lack of response, that hint of a smile on his face was accompanied by raised brows as he silently questioned my impediment. Righting myself more assertively and with a slight tilt of my head I simply replied, “Very well then.” What more could I say, really? Even as it came out of my mouth, I felt something inside me relent. He doesn’t usually take the wind out of my sails in such a direct manner and it left me stymied, and let’s face it - it was funny. My amusement wasn’t so slow to form as his, and I gave into the laughter that had threatened to make an inappropriate appearance earlier. It felt damn good to let go of all that seriousness, and Louis shook his head and joined me in the release. I let out a great and much needed sigh. “Damn you,” I shook my head and gave him my best scowl, though it broke apart most easily. I extended one arm, palm up in invitation and without hesitation, he came to my side. I drew him in and it caused me to feel an even greater relief than the laughter had, for in a strange way it felt as though we’d been forcibly separated. It was true that our past and even the collective past of our coven was an obstacle that routinely arose on the road we walked together; I pulled him in closer, at once resentful and thankful for it, because for better or worse it formed what we were in this very moment.

“How would you feel about putting all this to rest and getting the hell out of this place?” I asked with a kiss upon his hair.

“I think that might be the best thing I’ve heard since we got here.” He leaned against me as though overcome with sudden fatigue. “There’s plenty of time to make it to Paris before morning.”

“I’ll gather our things. And Louis?” I started for the door but stopped to look back at him. “All this jealousy you know… it’s because you’re mine and I don’t want anyone else to have what we have, for better or worse.” He looked thoughtful for a few seconds but couldn’t escape the smile that widened on his face.

“For better or worse, my love,” he echoed. “I’ll go and start the car.”

**La maison sur l'Île Saint-Louis**

>

(Louis)

It was a little after three in the morning when we let ourselves into the house on the _Ile St. Louis_ , a place I’d purchased just after the Great War. Over the decades I’d spent time there only occasionally--instead, I’d leased it to a dear friend for much of the duration of her life. In the last years of her life, she and Brian had formed a curious and close friendship and he had taken to visiting her here several times a year. Since her death, however, he had not been back to this place, declaring that without her presence the house was entirely too cold and lifeless. I understood his sorrow, but it did not feel so to me when Lestat and I arrived; I felt little reminders of her presence throughout, like reassuring touches; the ghost of her beloved Chanel No. 9 lived in the draperies and the upholstery and in the salon, a lifetime’s worth of photos graced a wide wall each in a unique frame. Among them were several of Lestat and myself on the occasion of her 80th birthday celebration. One of Lestat waltzing with her across the grand ballroom of the elegant Intercontinental brought a memory of when he’d lifted her from her feet and whirled her about until she was flushed and breathless and her face as lovely as it had been when she was a young woman of twenty. Lestat joined me at the wall and looked at the photo with a wistful smile.

"That was a marvelous night,” he said, touching the edge of the frame. “Paris is less bright without Simone.” I only nodded and we went together to sit before the windows that looked out upon _La Seine_ and the lights of the city. “You will call Brian?” he asked. He’d noticed the set of photos of Brian and Simone. 

“I texted and asked him to call at his convenience.” I said. “It’s likely he is sleeping by this time. And that brings us to another discussion, I think.”

He turned to me. “One that can wait, Louis. I have my reservations as I am sure you are aware, but in the end? That discussion is yours and Brian’s.”

For a moment I was completely overwhelmed with a wave of love and gratitude so great I could not immediately draw a breath.I know what strength of will and love lay behind his words.

“Ah, Lestat,” I said at last, drawing him close. He turned in my arms and maneuvered himself back to lie with his head in my lap. “That is not to say, Louis, that I would not welcome a discussion regarding your plans. And you needn’t look so shocked. I can be reasonable, you know.” 

Next - Chapter 24: A Familiar Relief - A Dream of Sailing


	24. A Familiar Relief   -   A Dream of Sailing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lestat makes another foray into the past and Louis visits a dream.

****

A Familiar Relief

(Lestat)

On the second evening, I woke before Louis and slipped out into the streets. The night was bordering on cold and I’d grabbed a long coat from the closet and was thankful for it as I walked the riverside path along the _Quai d’Anjou_. With the wind picking up, the last of the artists were packing away their wares and heading for warmer exhibition venues. They nodded politely in the hope that I was that one last sale, but I merely nodded in return and walked on.

I paused to stand and stare at the lights of the _Pont Marie_ upon the water, appearing to be just another tourist. The anonymity was as refreshing as the chill in the air. In the French Quarter on any given night Louis and I could be stopped for questioning, not by the police but usually by one brave mortal broken off or pushed toward us in a dare. “...S’cuse me,” they’d stammer. “You look like, I mean you look like you could be Lestat.” Then the tentative, nervous laughter before they saw Louis – that is if he hadn’t veered off into the closest trinket shop the minute he sensed them coming. If they did spot him at my side, the inquisition was naturally doubled. “And you, ohmygod… You guys are awesome. Can we get a picture?”

I’d feel Louis hand clamp down on my arm, telling me no, begging me to say no, but what do you think I’d say? Well, I wasn’t completely insensitive. I’d tell them that if it pleased them, they may take a picture with me, but that my companion was less amiable to such attentions. And yes, I said it just that way: I would hope any good imposter would carry the same eloquence after all. They’d take my picture and as they boldly wrapped their arms around my waist I inhaled the sweet vital scent of their lives. 

Perhaps before they wandered off to find other amusements, one of them would pause and look at me more directly. “Was there something else?” I would ask. Only a few times there had been the question of whether I was really who they suspected. “If you like.” I would shrug noncommittally. “Anything can happen in this city.” I would answered with a laugh that may or may not have shown what they would surmise to be ‘excellent fake fangs’, and then went to collect Louis before the music in the shops caused him to go mad. He would scold me then as we walked side by side toward home. Again I chuckled at the image as I set off into the darkness.

I had been alone beneath the amber halos of light along the walkway until I came upon a group that welcomed the chill outside their door with a makeshift bar and the warmth of a fire on either side. They appeared to be sharing a humorous story as I passed and called out as if I’d been expected.

 _“Eh toi, viens boire un verre avec nous pour te réchauffer, il fait froid ce soir.”_ They offered an invitation to join them, to warm myself and have a drink.

As I made my way around them on the street I slowed my steps, _“Merci, mais je dois refuser, j'ai des choses à faire autre part, je ne peux pas rester.”_ I said that it was getting late and so must refuse their invitation. I surely could have joined them, but we all know my interpretation of ‘come have a drink’ would be very different. I studied them for a long moment and to be certain, their heated, youthful blood nagged my instincts. In the firelight, they were beautiful to me and I had no true desire to ruin that picture. I started off once more and gave them a wave of my hand. _“Je repasserai peut-être plus tard… pour me réchauffer avec vous.”_ Ah, indeed… keep it warm for me. 

Deliberately, I looked at a petite redhead, wrapped in a cardigan. Her hazel eyes were gold in the light of the fire. Surely from the smile I gave her the innuendo in my words was clear. She shook her head, embarrassed and turned toward her friend. When they looked up again, I was gone. A block further I came to a stop outside the tan façade of a nondescript building just before the Louis Philippe Bridge and sat on the stone wall with the river at my back. Third floor, second window is where I’d seen him. Funny to recall how amazed I’d been to scramble up the side of the building, but then such flat stone is slippery, particularly for a fledgling vampire. I let out a sigh for no one to hear as I pictured the tableau my new vision had beheld: Nicolas there, safely away from me with the women from the theatre. Could I recall the names of those lovely ladies who’d been so devoted to their favourite young actor? I could, yes, but they didn’t matter now if indeed they ever had. My God, I shook my head and closed my eyes. I never should have come here that night. I should have left him to whatever fate arose. I swallowed the rising tide of emotion and let out my breath once more before returning my gaze to the windows. How many times had a mortal cried at the death of a loved one and said in a grief-stricken voice that if they could just have one more hour, if they could just see their beloved one more time, touch them, hold them and know them to be real and whole, if only…

I had been granted that wish, most terribly. All these years later, I can still smell him in my arms backstage. I can feel the hurt and confusion rushing in his blood; his blood, damnably close and dizzying as he rocked me back and forth, overjoyed at my return. There had come a moment when I’d wished to lose consciousness and float off with him in the blackest void to whatever lay beyond, but the greater truth that hit me so many years later is that there and then, I’d have given my newfound life and ten thereafter to see him live fully and grow old without the ruin I so selfishly delivered. 

My thoughts were broken as the wooden doors to the courtyard opened and an older woman stepped out with her dog. She started slightly upon seeing me and I stood to apologize.  
_"Excusez-moi Madame, je ne voulais pas vous faire peur.”_

Warily she regarded me and then tried to answer me in French that was hardly accurate. I smiled wanly at the effort and assured her in English that I meant no harm. I was still held by the thoughts of the past. She gave a little smile and with her eyes on the dog, commented that the chill in the air was too cold for walking.

“Actually, I came with a purpose. A dear friend of mine once lived in this building.” I said as I avoided the canine who apparently had the idea that my shoes needed a shiny layer of saliva.

“Ah then, how nice,” she exclaimed before she saw the look on my face. “Oh dear, I’m sorry.”

“No need _Madame_ , it was very long ago.” I hesitated, but the words had already come out. How could it be very long ago for a man who appeared to be twenty years old? She’d wonder on it later perhaps, but there was no need for fumbling with it now. “He lived there on the third floor. I had the stone relief there beneath the window placed as a memorial.”

“The violin?” Her eyes lit up. “My friend Hélène lives in that apartment and we’ve always wondered at the story behind it but the management could tell us nothing. It’s a violin, surrounded by those scrolled leaves, right? Of course we can’t get a full look at it from the window exactly.”

“Amaranth leaves, yes, for immortality. He was a fine musician; he would play sometimes from that very window and the sound would move on the wind.” I stopped short of saying more. I felt a sense of nakedness for such revelation, but stood with her for a minute looking up at the stone relief. I’d arranged for it at the time I had restored the family chateau and seeing it now, there was some measure of satisfaction, though again came the thought of him in that room so long ago and wishing I’d left well enough alone. In the present moment I could easily imagine this woman and her friend leaning out that window as they felt it blindly and speculated on who had garnered such a gesture. For one horrible moment I wanted to take her in my arms and sink my teeth into her throat as I let the memories spill from my mind. I knew that if I did such a thing death would be the only justifiable end. I couldn’t let her live with such torrid, seductive pain. I know what it’s like to live with it, after all, and I’ve ended the lives of many who carried such hurt… there were simply some I couldn’t set free in time. “You’d better get back inside,” I suggested. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

“No bother at all, now. Moffy had to make a last round and look, now I know the secret of that stone.” She pulled on the leash and turned back toward the doors. “Oh, Hélène is going to be so tickled to find out. I think I’ll bribe her to pay me with breakfast, what do you think?”

“I think worthwhile confessions deserve compensation.” At that, I smiled most genuinely, gave her a chivalrous bow and headed back to the salvation that waited for me other end of this little island in the middle of the Seine.

****

A Dream of Sailing

(Louis)

Lestat was not in the house when I roused myself from sleep but I knew he would not be gone long; he was close enough that I could sense his presence in the same way any of us can sense others of our kind. With this in mind, I dressed warmly and let myself out onto the ornate balcony off the master bedroom. The wind off the river was chilly, but not so cold as it had been since our arrival; spring was often a capricious visitor to Paris and I was glad of the warm, woolen overcoat and the silk-lined gloves I wore. This coat and the gloves resided in the hall closet in this house, a gift given years back from Brian on his first visit here with me. He’d been much in love with Paris, listening to my dear Simone speak of the city and what it had been like in her younger years. She had lived here for decades and the house was somehow less without her vibrant presence.

_“It just feels different knowing I can’t spend time with her in the garden anymore.” BrIan said as he's turned to look at me somberly. “When Simone spoke about her beloved city, what you were really hearing was Paris relating a dream of her own, best self.”_

I could not have put it better myself, I thought. Thinking about Brian was bruising; I missed him and I had recently become more and more worried as to his welfare. He had seemed somehow diminished the last time we spoke--his normal energy level lower than I was used to. Worse, he’d made no protest when I mentioned it, only nodding in agreement. “Yeah. It’s been gradual. I sleep more. I dream more.” he’d said. “Low batteries, I guess. I miss you.”

It seemed a long while ago, yet it had only been a matter of days, just before Lestat and I had come to France. So much had occurred since we’d arrived. Had Brian felt it in spite of the fading influence of the Blood? It was entirely possible - he was not so far away from where we were now. I closed my eyes and opened my mind to find his; I reached for him, finding him easily and it was good to trace contours that were familiar, so singular to Brian alone.

He was deeply asleep, dreaming of a dark grey sky over a turbulent sea and his heart was beating fast, his breaths rapid. He was steering a boat, sailing rough waters; his mind and body were completely united in purpose and focus, specifically outrunning a swiftly advancing gale. His face was wet with salt spray, the muscles in his arms and back thrumming with the labor of holding the tiller in place. He released the jib and ducked smoothly beneath the boom as it swung round. Cold hands, cold feet, discomfort overlaid with exhilaration when he at last rounded the rocky headland. The chop settled considerably and he maneuvered the boat close to a dock seething with men. Lines were tossed and the boat secured; arms reached and pulled Brian up with much clapping of shoulders and red-faced shouting. Brian smiled, answering the cries and then suddenly stopping to look about, the smile widening slightly before fading. “Louis?”

The dock scene winked out and he was lying on a narrow bed with his dog at his feet. “Shhh.” I soothed. “Go back to sleep, _cher_.” I lingered a few moments longer as he shifted and sleep claimed him once again. Withdrawing gently, I came back to myself on the windy balcony. Before me on the river a low barge passed and disappeared beneath the _Pont Sully_. In the opposite direction came the familiar cadence of Lestat's step as he rounded the corner from the _Rue Poulletier_. He wore a long coat of fine grey wool, tapered in at the waist with a generous flare at the hip; he angled his body instinctively against the blast of wind that caught at him and the fabric belled out around him in a most artful manner. I found that I was holding my breath, captured by his elegant movements; he could have stepped onto the street from a moment in out long ago past, I thought; all that was missing was a smart walking stick and a gentleman’s tricorn.

He advanced few more steps beneath the interlaced bare tree limbs. Looking up, his eyes found mine followed by his radiant smile. A lone car passed him, rattling toward the bridge and then he was below, unlocking the door and disappearing into the house--only a brief moment and he was standing beside me arm snaking around my waist so that we stood, hip to hip. His eyes were trained on the river; mine traced the line of his jaw lovingly. 

He turned his head slowly and I moved into his arms. “You’re cold,” he said, his lips barely touching mine.

“April in Paris,” I responded with a small shrug. He smiled and then our lips met, the barest touch, our breath mingling. He ran the tip of his tongue across my bottom lip and then drew me back inside the house, closing and latching the doors behind us.

We went back downstairs to the salon and shed our coats Lestat started a fire in the wide hearth and and we sat together on the long Chesterfield sofa before it, drawing the soft, folded blanket from one end over us. He didn’t say anything for a space of minutes, studying my face and my body language.

“I think, Louis, you need to speak with Brian. Tell him we are ready to embark on the trip he has so thoughtfully provided for us." He paused and I felt the coolness of his fingers as they brushed the hair back from my face. "The ennui he feels is only for the fact that he misses his purposeful place in our lives. While we're gone he can ready the house for our return. All that normalcy... he adores it, you know he does.” he uttered an amused laugh and traced one long, lazy finger around my face as he spoke. "Assure him of our love, and call him home."

I nodded, unsurprised that he had divined my recent train of thought. “I will. He’ll be calling soon enough.” I smiled at his raised eyebrow. “He’s sleeping. Dreaming of sailing.” He nodded and I watched the flow of his thoughts cross his expressive features; satisfaction, consternation, a tinge of sorrow, a glint of possessiveness and over all of it, his boundless love. We moved to lie together for a time in comfortable silence. 

After while he spoke, words somewhat muffled against my neck. “Do you still regret that we cannot share our every thought? Even after the revelations at the tower?” I felt the hardness of his teeth beneath his lips, unbearably sensual against my skin.

“I regret many things, but the barrier is something not of our design. I would gladly have my mind opened to yours and yours to mine, yet I understand why you feel the need to stress the positive things, such as they are, about that wretched barrier.”

“Mmm. Doesn’t sound much like you are reconciled to the situation,” he said lightly.

I laughed a little. “No. Understanding what you mean is not the same as a lessening of my need to have such contact with you at whim. I don’t mean I need to know your every thought - I think that might be more than any one person could handle.” I felt his teeth nip my throat even as he rumbled in feigned protest. “Everyone in the coven can hear you if you want them to and you can hear them. Is it really too much for me to want that with you out of all of our kind?”

He raised his head to look at me. “When you put it that way, no, of course not.”

I nodded and put my hand behind his head and guiding him back to my throat. “Now, then. Stop teasing and open me. Drink, my love.”

He did, a long, leisurely draught that allowed that blessed connection. Mind to mind we floated together and when he released me, I moved to take from him; back and forth, twined together in an ecstasy made possible in the Blood, in the give and take that transcends even physical union. Even as I thought that, I heard his mind voice chiding me playfully and I answered in kind that there was time enough just ahead of us for such pleasures.

Next - Chapter 25 - Epilog


	25. Back to New Orleans (Epilog)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winding down this part of the ongoing tale..thank you for reading and for your comments!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of this part of the story - Next in the series, Louis and Lestat take the trip to the island off North Africa, their gift from Brian - meanwhile, Brian returns to New Orleans and finds out there's been a bit of intrigue and excitment in his absence. We hope you will join us!

(Brian)

I had been accustomed to being awake at night for obvious reasons but in the months since I’d come to Ireland, I’d begun to split my time a bit more evenly. On days when the sun shone, the land around my small house was so startlingly green it seemed impossible for the eye make sense of the saturation of color and the changes in light and shadow as the clouds progress across the sky. I don’t even attempt to resist days like this and I took to documenting the land around me on video; I wanted Louis to see what it looked like. On the weekends, I fell back to my nocturnal habits, heading to one or another of the pubs in Waterville or Portmagee for music and a pint or two.

The weather in the past week had driven me indoors. A cold blow howling in from across the North Sea made the soft spring days that I'd been enjoying seem dream-like, as though I’d imagined it. Relentless driving rain shifted to sleet and back again; it was so miserable that the ducks who had taken to hanging about the dooryard were making use of the empty goat shed at one side of the house.

I’d spent the morning working my way through the household accounts back home; not much of a task, really, since many of the payments are automatic. I kept an eye on them out of habit just to be sure nothing untoward had occurred. Nothing had. Normally I would be out at this time, walking with Murphy across the fields or by the sea cliffs, but by the fourth day inside, held captive by the unpleasant weather, I was restless, edgy with nerves. I had access to anything I wanted to read or watch or listen to, but nothing held my attention for long.

Murphy, always attuned to my moods, nosed my hand and I stroked his broad head absently. “Know what buddy? I think I’m homesick.” Well, I was of course. I loved it here, but it’s not my home. I missed New Orleans and my friends there. Missed the food, the smells, the music and I missed my place in all of it. I missed the feeling of being involved. I kept up with everything as I would if I’d been there but the disconnect had begun to have an effect on my mood.

I missed Lestat and the drama that surrounds him even when he is doing the simplest things. You can walk down the street with him and feel the way his energy affects anyone who happens to look his way; he is recognizable even to those who cannot put their finger on just who he is. Sometimes I’ll walk up Royal Street in the evening and I’ll hear him playing the piano, the music eddying out of the open French doors, the notes seeming to linger in the warm air. The drama there is gauging his mood and as nuanced as his playing is, it’s challenging. I missed his wicked sense of humor and I missed his heart-stopping smile.

And Louis. His absence from my life had become an unceasing deep ache from which there was no relief. To say I missed him seemed entirely inadequate and it comes nowhere close to describing the brooding melancholy that had lately descended on me, not to mention unquiet state of mind I found myself in the past few nights. I wondered how they were getting along--more so since the vivid dreams I’d had; dreams of Louis, unlike my mind’s usual rambles that included him. It had been akin to hearing his thoughts but without the filters I was somehow aware he usually had in place. Uncensored, raw feeling; a wild sort of grief for Lestat --not loss of him, but pain for him.

“And something about Armand,” I muttered to myself. “That can’t be good.”

Outside, the wind picked up force, rain mixing once again with sleet and the view through the glass was blurred into obscurity. I wondered how the low-lying area downhill from the house was faring under the assault...surely the low rock wall had been overtopped by this time. Murphy pushed his nose under my hand again and made the soft whistling sound he uses to indicate sympathy. I scratched behind his ears and then rose to put the kettle on. One thing I have learned to appreciate in my time here is the fortification strong tea provides.

Three quarters of an hour later found me in seated near the hearth with the cup of tea near to hand and Chopin playing through the sound system. The music suited the weather and my mood and the addition of a generous splash of whiskey in my tea served to lull me into a drowsy, drifting state and undirected by conscious thought, a conversation with Louis came back to me, a conversation when we’d spent a winter at my cabin in the Berkshires, a few years after Lestat’s departure from New Orleans and his life with Louis.

 

_“You say that a lot, Louis.”_

_“Say what?” He had that half-in-this-world look about him that felt at times like a knife in the ribs because in it you could see depth of his love for Lestat and how it mingled so entirely with pain and no small amount of grief._

_“That Lestat saved you from yourself.”_

_“Do you doubt it?”_

_“I don’t doubt that it’s exactly how you feel—I mean, you’re honest to a fault,” I paused and then went on, “Except for maybe with yourself.”_

_The far-away look had vanished, replaced with an uncomfortably sharp focus. “Do you think I am being dishonest with myself in this regard?” He asked finally._

_“No, that’s not what I meant, exactly. I think you sell yourself short.”_

_“How so? You did not know me then, after all,” he said reasonably and without defensiveness._

_“Because I think you saved yourself. Lestat certainly had a hand in it but you were the one who made the decision and you were the one who did not fight against the notion of what he was and what he was asking of you.” I cursed myself – I’d seen the flash of pain cross his features at the mention of Lestat’s name._

_He was quiet for a while and I waited, listening to the tick of sleet against the windows and the background fluttering roar of the fireplace drawing strongly. Louis was on the couch, curled against the arm with a blanket wrapped around him in spite of the snug warmth of the room. I fed lengths of wood to the hungry fire, seated on one of the wooden kitchen chairs I kept there for that very purpose._

_“As I have so often said to you, Lestat’s impact upon me made the decision inevitable,” he said at length. “To say I chose would not be correct, you see…there was very little choice involved; I could no more resist him than you can resist me, cher. He asked me and made certain that I answered him but I tell you now, there was no other answer I could have given.”_

_“It still means you chose to save yourself.” I insisted._

_“I suppose I might ask why this train of thought occurs to you. You have never seemed to me as one who needs saving; indeed, your personality is affable and steady—I venture to say any upheaval within you, such as it is, has come as a result of your association with myself and with Lestat.”_

_“You’d be right about that,” I said. “And you know why it occurs to me. This dancing around the point while you allow me time to consider my…my options, is getting a little old, isn’t it?” I turned from the flames to look at him. “My choice may or may not be inevitable because of your overwhelming influence, you mad bastard, but in the end we are our own saviors, Louis. Y’know, it’s really okay for you to say you have not yet made up your mind and you need time to think it over---I know you well enough to know this isn’t something you take lightly.” I left the rest of that thought unspoken, unwilling to press him when he had so much on his mind._

_“I don’t take it lightly, no,” he smiled a little, “…and ‘mad bastard’ may well be an apt reference, but you know I don’t say such things from vanity, I say it from experience.”_

_I crossed the room and sat down beside him. “Your experience and mine are not the same which only makes sense -- different people, you know? And born in vastly different times. Whatever baggage I am hauling around, very little of it is attached to the concepts of guilt or redemption. I want this because I love you and if you want to wait to see if we can figure out a way around the dreadful death sleep or if I come back to my senses and run screaming into the night or some other odd notion you may have, that’s fine with me. You may even be right, who knows. I wouldn’t bet on it, though.” He gave one of his rare, brilliant smiles and I pulled him toward me thinking that he was right, I couldn’t resist him even if I was crazy enough to want to. He kissed the shelf of my jaw and nuzzled his way to my neck and then the exquisite pain of his fangs sinking into my skin. If he had not heard the thought a moment ago, I knew it flooded his mind even as my blood flooded his mouth. > _

My phone, near to hand beside the mug of tea, pinged with the little tone that let me know Louis had left me a text message. 

_On our way to Paris – please call me at your convenience. L._

Well, it was convenient now, but the text suggested an _en route_ situation and I had no idea where they were _en route_ from so despite wanting to speak to him that very moment, I decided to wait one night. 

**********

Thursday night and I was rattling over the winding road in the the aged Land Rover I’d bought to use while I lived here. Murphy sat shotgun with his nose out the window while I concentrated on driving. The storm system had passed over at last, shoved along by a decidedly warmer front wending its way in from the southwest. By early evening the wind had died altogether and we were driving through a featureless mist redolent of brine and wet earth.

The Land Rover had excellent fog lamps but the going was still slow. I was in no rush: it was early and I knew by now that the music usually started up closer to nine after everyone had a pint or two. Paris is an hour ahead of where I am, so I’d made my phone call to Louis just after sunset, Paris time. The end result was me, driving through dense fog, feeling lighter of heart that I had in weeks and obsessively going over the phone call, feeling a pleasurable fizz of low-grade delight. 

I’d anticipated some of it; they were in Paris, so I reasoned that they wanted to schedule the next leg of the trip I’d arranged for them and that’s what Louis said at the beginning of the conversation. I would see to the arrangements right away, I told him, and text the details. A flight from Paris to Marrakech was only a matter of three hours and they would have a night to explore as well as a safe place to stay as part of the arrangements I’d made with Gareth. Sort of business as usual. 

_“I’ll leave the return open-ended. I get the idea that you’ll both want to stay at for a while.”_

_“That’s fine. I have every faith in you and we are very curious as to what lies before us, of course. What I really wanted to tell you is that I miss you. We both miss you.” Louis said. “I’m asking you now to be home to greet us on our return if it’s what you want. We have a good deal to talk about, you and I. There is no immediate rush, since we don’t know yet when we will return, just…tell me you will come back to us.”_

_My hands were shaking and I swallowed. “I’ll come back.” I said. I couldn’t believe my voice sounded so normal. “Of course I want to. Wind all the damn clocks and make sure...make sure…” my voice broke a little. “Oh, fuck it. I miss you too and I can’t wait to see you, Louis. Take your time on your trip--enjoy yourselves and let me know when you want to come back and I’ll be waiting, right?” I felt almost faint with relief._

_“Right.” Louis said, and the warmth in his reply washed over me. I heard Lestat speaking in the background. “Lestat says he would not be adverse to having the bedroom redone if you feel like it.”_

_“Left a mess, did you? We’ve talked about this,” I said in an approximation of my normal exasperated voice. I was still trembling , trying to catch hold of the sudden cresting flood of emotion._

_“No mess, beyond the pile of clothes on his chair in the dressing room,” Louis said with the familiar indulgent fondness he displays when he’s content with Lestat. I could just see their eyes meeting. “Do it if you’ve a mind to. Let us know the itinerary when you have it arranged and then arrange to get yourself and Murphy back home. I love you, my Brian.”_

He’d dropped the connection, then and that had been good, that had been _fine_ , because I was already overwhelmed which he probably knew. I wanted to process it and that’s what I’d done, what I continued to do before I called the number I had for Gareth so I could firm up the travel arrangements. 

Later, after being welcomed out of the foggy night into the pub and the camaraderie of the people I’d become friendly with, I had a pang of sadness, short lived but intense. I like it here and I liked these people. I said nothing of my departure that night; it would keep. It was a night to keep the damp out and to tune up and play together like we’d done throughout the winter; a good night and when it was over, I walked the several blocks with Murphy to a B&B we stayed in when I knew it was probably a good idea not to drive.

A freshening wind had kicked up and the fog blown way to expose the waxing moon sailing high and white among the shredded clouds. I’d be home again within the month and the idea of it again brought up that fizz of happiness.

“Going back to New Orleans, Murphy. What do you say?” 

FIN


End file.
